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-^ 
A 






■ -s:.'. 



LIFE 

OF 



Mme. de la Rochefoucauld. 

DUCHESS OF DOUDEAUVILLE, 



FOUNDER OF THE 



1882 ) 

SOCIETY OF NAZARETH. 



Translated from the French. 




•t/i - hj. 



BOSTON : 

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 

©be Etoerfifte Pregc, Cambrrtrre. 

1878. 



/ 



Copyright, 187S, 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 

All rights reserved. 






RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



« 






CONTENTS. 

Chapter Page 

I. Mademoiselle de Montmirail . . 5 

11. The Christian in the World . 37 

III. Apostleship in the Family . . -65 

IV. During the Revolution ... 92 
V. Counsels to her Daughter . . . 136 

VI. Death of Madame de Rastignac . 184 

VII. Private Life 212 

VIII. Nazareth 250 

IX. Hopes and Family-Griefs . . . 286 

X. Rest in God 311 



V 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 



CHAPTER L 

MADEMOISELLE DE MONTMIRAIL. 

It is not without a feeling of respectful 
fear that we dare to raise the veil from a 
life full of holy mysteries which humility 
has always kept carefully hidden. She, 
whom the Lord had prevented with many 
graces from her earliest years, concealed 
so well everything which might attract 
consideration, that her children, her inti- 
mate friends, snatched from her only with 
difficulty, and as if by surprise, some of 
her sublime secrets. If, in order to win 
from her one of these desired communica- 
tions, you anticipated her by making a con- 



6 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

fidence, she would answer at times with the 
same abandonment, betraying herself un- 
consciously, for from the simplest confes- 
sion flashed the mild brightness which 
reveals the precious stone. But one had 
to be very careful that no expression of 
admiration escaped him, else would he have 
saddened a heart which had no inclination 
but for hidden virtue. 

We know then but little of this long ex- 
istence, which scored by sad trials, shaken 
by violent storms, yet remained always 
calm and serene, because it ran on pure 
and strong, under the eye of God. And 
even this little that we know we cannot 
give entire, because, to reveal the heroism 
of this soul, its patience, its magnanimity, 
we must discover wrongs done against her 
of which she never spoke. 
y Benigne-Augustine-Frangoise le Teillier 
de Louvois de Montmirail] was born at 
Paris the fourth of June, 1764. She was 
daughter to the Marquis of Montmirail, a 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 7 

man of great merit, and a distinguished 
pupil of the Fathers of the Company of Je- 
sus. He had married Mademoiselle de Bre- 
tonvilliers, then widow of the Marquis of 
Saint Aulain. The happiness of this sec- 
ond union was of short duration, for after 
aiding M. de Buffon in the composition of 
his Natural History, the young marquis, as 
brilliant knight as learned scholar, went 
into the army and died there at the mo- 
ment when he was about to taste, for the 
second time, the sweetness of paternity. 
This was a great family grief. All hopes 
were then turned upon the expected child ; 
they asked themselves if he would not be 
heir to the name, and the numerous acces- 
sories of his ancestors, and nothing could 
better paint the natural and most legiti- 
mate desires of these great lords, than a 
speech of the Marechal d'Estrdes : learning 
that the decisive hour approached, he said 
to his servants : " If it is a boy, burst open 
all the doors, and come and tell me; if 



8 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

it is a girl, let me sleep." Probably they 
did not trouble the sleep of the old soldier, 
for the marchioness gave birth to a second 
daughter, who, after being a friend for her 
sister, and the companion of her studies, is 
to become later Madame de Montesquiou. 

It was thus upon the elder daughter that 
the hope of all returned. If, in the midst 
of their delusion, the noble parents of this 
dear child had caught but a glimpse of her 
destiny, they would surely have kneeled 
down by the cradle where slept the com- 
forting angel, the support, the preserver of 
her family. 

All that this world holds of most seduc- 
tive seemed to combine in an offering to 
this delicious little creature : brilliant for- 
tune, a remarkable beauty, a princely po- 
sition. Nothing that can dazzle was lack- 
ing, and there was that to make one trem- 
ble, if the elect of earth had not been first 
of all a chosen one of heaven. The gifts 
of grace, happily, far surpassed those of 



-JH 



1 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 9 

nature; the love of God penetrated this 
ehild-heart, to illuminate the first rays of 
intelligence. From the moment that she 
could fold her hands and lisp the names of 
Jesus and of Mary, she did it with such 
grace and sweetness, that one would have 
said an angel prayed. 

They had consecrated her to the blessed 
Virgin, whose white garments she wore. 
When she was three years old, Madame de 
Mancini, her grandmother, promising her- 
self a fete in giving her the first colored 
dress, ordered a superb frock, — pink, with 
silver spangles and fringes. Thinking to 
delight her, they brought the frock into her 
room with pomp, to the great admiration 
of all the women ; but the dear child, as if 
she knew already the bliss of wearing a ce- 
lestial livery, fixed her great black eyes 
sadly on the sumptuous apparel, and shed 
abundant tears when they wished to dress 
her in it. All the day she begged for her 
white clothes, and Uiey had to give them 
back to her. 



lo Madame de la Rochefotuatdd. 

One day, her maid coming to wake her 
up, found her radiant in her Kttle bed. 
" Oh ! nurse," she said, " how beautiful it 
is! Let me see it again ; it is heaven and 
the Holy Virgin ! How beautiful. ... I 
shall go some day." 

There were signs of predestination here. 
Let us see how God sets about fortifying 
the souls which He has chosen. 

This infancy, so beautiful in its open- 
ing, so rich in the gifts of heaven and of 
earth, ran on sadly, notwithstanding: the 
father, wise and good, was not there to 
watch over his girls, and Madame de Mont- 
mirail, although animated by excellent in- 
tention, could not replace him. Young, 
beautiful, elegantly clever, haughty, she 
knew how to preserve a reputation beyond 
criticism, a thing rare and difficult in her 
position at the time w^hen she lived. Her 
original character presented odd contrasts. 
Noble, generous in her dealings, she was 
specially charitable towards the poor, to 



\ 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 1 

whom she always gave freely, even after 
the emigration, when her fortune was sen- 
sibly diminished ; but her private conduct 
offered singular minglings, — contradic- 
tions, which are explained only by the false 
direction given to her youth. In the bosom 
of a parliamentary family she had imbibed 
Jansenist principles, and withal she sur- 
rounded herself with Jesuits. She liked the 
great world, pleasure ; and in the country 
she brought together the people of the 
neighborhood — nay, even the peasants, — 
and skipped about with them all the even- 
ing, as simple and joyous as a child. She 
thought, in the light of duty, that the dan- 
cing should be over at ten o'clock, but find- 
ing it to her taste that it should last until 
midnight, she put back the clocks two hours. 
This went on for a long time without aston- 
ishment being evinced, when people found 
the night so far advanced, on getting home. 
She had an especial dress for going to 
confession, and as at that time they were 



1 2 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

particular that the clothing should change 
with the season, she had to have four 
toilets entirely set apart for this pious prac- 
tice. 

On the eve of her communions, she 
fasted and spent the day in profound re- 
treat ; then, in setting forth for mass, she 
would turn and say to her women : '^ May 
God pardon you, young women, as I pardon 
you.'* Thinking in this way to have com- 
plied with the precept of charity, she ap- 
proached the holy eucharist with faith. 

The marchioness carried the same pe- 
culiarity into the management of her chil- 
dren. She took a great deal of trouble 
about it, but her system of education was 
severe to harshness. Mademoiselle de 
Montmirail suffered from it more than her 
sister. The latter, playful by nature, had 
the art of disarming her mother by a rep- 
artee, thus saving her from the remorse of 
having been unjust, while little Augustine, 
timid, fearful, embarrassed, stood speech- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 3 

less through these freaks of temper which 
she did n't understand. Her tears fell si- 
lently, and the marchioness, feeling a re- 
proach for her hasty behaviour, became 
more irritated than ever. 

Exaggerating the best systems of educa- 
tion, she chose to oblige her children to eat 
everything, and that, without exception, in 
spite of the protest of temperament ; hence, 
the younger was shut up a whole day with 
a plate of carrots, and did n*t leave her 
prison until she had eaten the whole. 
Mademoiselle Augustine had an uncon- 
querable dislike for onions. She took 
obediently what her mother had given her, 
but if her will was submissive, the stomach 
showed itself rebellious ; then pitilessly 
they forced the poor child to take back the 
rejected food. There was this other thing 
that tortured her, — when her mother, rais- 
ing her voice, would say to her suddenly : 

'' Speak, mademoiselle, say something at 
once." 



14 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

At this unseasonable order, the dear 
little girl troubled, struck dumb, was be- 
reft of voice and words. A second injunc- 
tion finished the confusion of her ideas ; 
tears got the better of her, and for her con- 
solation the marchioness would add : — 

" Kneel down, miss, and stay in the mid- 
dle of the room until you have spoken/* 

The child would bend her little head to 
show herself docile, but it was often with- 
out result ; and she related, later in life, 
that one day, after trying her best, she had 
been very pleased to be able to say, " There 
are three cracks in the ceiling/* She was 
far from being deficient in intelligence, as 
we shall see, in following this pious life. 

She was greatly loved by those who sur- 
rounded her ; her uncles, her sisters, her 
governesses, the maids, all showed her af- 
fection, and consoled her a little for the se- 
verity of her mother. The Marshal d'Es- 
trees called her Bellotte ; this truly remark- 
able beauty might have become disastrous 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 5 

to her, for she heard it incessantly praised ; 
but at the age of six she was looking at 
herself in the glass with satisfaction, when, 
instead of her own charming face, she saw 
only a death's head. Was this the effect of 
an excited imagination, or one of the mer- 
cies which God sometimes grants to fav- 
oured souls ? We should not dare to say ; 
but it is certain that at the age of seventy 
or eighty years, the Duchess of Doudeau- 
ville still spoke with tears of the impression 
produced by this image of death. From 
this moment, the fear of offending God 
made her look upon beauty as a sad advan- 
tage and a real danger ; this thought never 
abandoned her, even in the midst of the 
most brilHant successes. 

Every morning the governess led the 
two little girls into the marchioness' room, 
whilst she made her toilet. After kissing 
their mother s hand, they would learn their 
lessons by her side, and were severely pun- 
ished when they didn't know them very 
well. 



1 6 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Mademoiselle Augustine was only seven 
years old when she lost her great-uncle, the 
Marshal d'Es trees, who loved her dearly. 
The brave soldier died like a Christian 
hero ; when they brought him the sacra- 
ments, in spite of keen suffering, he tried 
to rise to receive our Lord. During this 
time his little niece was praying with fer- 
vour in the adjoining room ; she already 
understood that something very solemn was 
taking place ; that she was losing a pro- 
tector, but already, too, she thought of eter- 
nity. 

Every year, under the charge of their 
governess, the two children made a six 
months* stay, or so, on an estate called 
Binanville, near Mantes. Madame Mont- 
mirail often went to see them, but her ap- 
pearance was always the signal for some 
punishment, and yet Mademoiselle Augus- 
tine applied herself earnestly to her stud- 
ies ; her great happiness was to hear mass 
which a venerable Franciscan often came 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 7 

to say in the chapel of the castle. He had 
noticed the angelic child, and, touched by 
her piety, he often interposed as mediator 
between her and her mother. Her dolls, 
the walks in a nice little wood, sweet 
cakes, the milk which they drank at Jean- 
ette's mother's farm, — all these held a good 
place in her childish recollections. They 
were the little girls* greatest amusements. 
Thanks to their affection, Jeanette was well 
educated, afterwards well settled, and they 
went to see her with great pleasure. 

As soon as their age allowed a more 
continuous application, Madame Montmirail 
chose the best professors for her daughters, 
adding accomplishments to their graver 
studies. Madame Leprince de Beaumont, 
who has composed excellent works for the 
young, gave them lessons for three years ; 
she became much attached to her two pu- 
pils, and when she left them to go to Spain, 
she wrote very affectionately to Mademoi- 
selle Augustine, who was pleased and 



1 8 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

proud. A disciple of Rollin replaced this 
excellent governess as professor of his- 
tory, and interested the children, whose 
taste was beginning to be formed ; he was 
a pious man ; he interspersed his lessons 
with sage reflections, which suited the seri- 
ous character of Mademoiselle Augustine ; 
he spoke often of her father, thils father 
whom she had never known, and whom 
everybody knew and admired. Each and 
all seemed to say that if he had lived, he 
would have made her happy. Did these 
praises call out deep regrets and compari- 
sons which we can easily understand ? We 
do not know. The dear child never com- 
plained, and never accused anybody. Long 
after, when, in looking back to her early 
years, people reminded her of what she 
must have suffered, she answered simply: 
*' My mother was virtuous ; and if it is true 
that she was sharp and severe toward me, 
I thank God for it as a great boon ; for, if. 
from my childhood I had found a friend in 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 9 

her, with my sensitive and ardent nature I 
should have attached myself strongly to 
the creature/' 

It was, then, to keep this young heart 
quite for Himself, to prepare it for great 
struggles, that our Lord initiated it in suf- 
fering on the threshold of life, revealing to 
it the secrets of His love. 

One day Madame de Montmirail sends 
for her elder daughter, and says in a tone 
which admits of no reply : — 

"You have told a falsehood, miss, and, 
in consequence, you are to leave my roof 
instantly." 

Little Augustine, who had only answered 
some foolish question simply and timidly, 
climbs, all dazed, into a carriage, and pres- 
ently reaches the convent door, where they 
introduce her as a little culprit. The nuns 
of the Visitation, greatly astonished, were 
not long in finding in their new pupil a 
good, sweet, and pious child, who soon won 
their affection. At first, she mourned sadly 



20 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

her sister, her nurse, her belongings ; but, 
Httle by httle, the atmosphere of gentle- 
ness, of silence, of love of God, which she 
breathed in this religious house dissipated 
her grief, and the pious asylum became for 
her a place of delights, whose peace and 
sweetness were grateful to her soul. She 
learned there the charm of friendship, for 
despite the contrast of their characters, she 
formed a close intimacy with Mademoiselle 
de Sinetti. United in their studies and 
their games, the school-girls were later 
bound to one another by the same ma- 
ternal griefs, and up to a very old age, the 
virtuous Duchess of Doudeauville sustained 
and encouraged the brilliant Duchess of 
Caderousse, who always felt for her friend a 
tenderness mingled with reverence. 

This sojourn at the Visitation, ten 
months long only, was marked by a great 
event, — a memorable date whose anniver- 
sary Madame de Doudeauville kept all her 
life with renewed joy and gratitude. The 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 2 1 

years, instead of weakening this feeling, 
served, on the contrary, only to increase it ; 
for, towards the end of her life, when her 
soul seemed to begin to be indifferent to 
the things of earth, while alive only to 
heavenly things, it was enough to speak 
the name of Saint John in her presence, to 
irradiate her face and make her start with 
joy : " Oh ! " she would say, " that is the 
day of my first communion ! " 

What took place in the heart of the 
twelve years' child at this solemn moment ? 
Doubtless God made her to taste marvel- 
lously His holy presence ; for after a long 
thanksgiving, when all the companions 
about her had disappeared. Mademoiselle 
de Montmirail, on her knees, saw nothing, 
heard nothing ; she seemed transported to 
heaven. The nun detailed to call her, not 
daring to disturb her meditation, stopped, 
filled with respect, before this child lost in 
the presence of God. But as the prayers 
still went on, fearing for her health, they 



2 2 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

decided to interrupt her. " What ! al- 
ready ! '* she said sadly, and it cost her a 
great effort to leave her prie-Dieu. 

After her communion, she felt herself 
strongly impelled by the desire to conse- 
crate herself entirely tj her Lori The 
life of the convent was full of attraction 
for her recollected souL This calm, this 
regular life, suited her character irinch bet- 
ter than the agitation of the age. The 
kindness of her teachers, the friendship of 
her compan: : r. s. ex^ anded her heart, so that 
she experienced a great sadness when her 
mother, on the very evening of this great 
day, announced to her that she was to re- 
turn immediately to her house at Louvois. 
She ventured timidly to make a request 
" Until now," she said, " I have thought of 
nothing but my first communion ; if you 
would allow me to spend three or four days 
more here, to prepare rz::^€l for going 
back to the world, I shoi:' f e :::ost grate- 
fuL" 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 23 

Madame de Montmirail willingly yielded 
to her daughter's wish, who continued her 
retreat with a fervour and seriousness far 
beyond her years. Let us listen to her 
own impressions, revealed in a moment of 
effusion. 

" All that the world esteemed seemed to 
me despicable, and I couldn't understand 
how one could attach himself to these 
things. From the gallery where I was fer- 
vently praying, I could see the nuns pros- 
trate themselves, with their faces against 
the ground, spending long hours before the 
tabernacle. I thought them happy beyond 
all expression, and in my childishness, I 
kissed the walls of the cloister, where I 
would fain have stayed always. I loved 
dearly Saint Frangois de Sales, whom I 
called our holy founder ; my desire to en- 
rol myself among his daughters became so 
pressing, that one day, after my meditation, 
without understanding to what I was going 
to engage myself, seeing only the happi- 



24 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

ness of belonging entirely to God, I had 
on my lips the perpetual vow of virginity, 
when I thought I heard distinctly these 
words : ' No — in the world, against all 
thine inclination/ Then, trembling, and 
bursting into tears, I answered : ' As Thou 
wouldst have it, Lord, but let the will of 
my mother be the expression of Thine/ 
And it seemed to me as if I were to prac- 
tice the virtues of the cloister, without tast- 
ing its sweets, to apply myself to humility 
in the midst of grandeur, to poverty in the 
lap of riches, to mortification under the 
outward appearance of well-being, to the 
purest modesty amid the vanities and follies 
of the century. This sacrifice cost me a 
great deal ; but I could not be mistaken 
about the will of God, and I prayed to Him 
to aid me in conquering my repugnance." 

The three days of grace having elapsed, 
Mademoiselle Augustine, perfectly re- 
signed, fell back under the severe and fan- 
ciful yoke of her mother, who continued to 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 25 

punish her for the merest trifles ; the most 
frequent offences came from some sUght 
omission of etiquette, from an awkward- 
ness caused by timidity — the exceeding 
fear of that pitiless look, which paralyzed 
the young girl, just as it had embarrassed 
the child. For instance, eight days after 
her marriage, she was condemned by her 
mother to dine alone at a table of penitence, 
in a corner of the dining-room, because 
she had made her courtesy badly, in enter- 
ing the drawing-room. 

The torture of these sad days began in 
the early morning, for the coiffure of this 
period demanded a great deal of time, and 
the maid took two hours every day for 
arranging a superb head of hair, which 
Mademoiselle de Montmirail would gladly 
have committed to the scissors. An ex- 
treme sensitiveness made of these two 
hours a veritable martyrdom. She spent 
them in complete immobility, while think- 
ing of the crown of thorns. 



26 Madame de la RocJiefaucauld. 

Meanwhile, everybody was absorbed by 
the marriage-plans for this beautiful and 
rich heiress. She alone never thought of 
them. Of suitors there could be no lack 
for one who joined to her personal charms 
every social advantage ; among them fig- 
ure<^a Spanish grandee of the first class, 
placed over the Duchy of DoudeauviUe in 
the Boulonnais. People asked each other 
who would be the favoured mortal chosen 
for such an alliance. In the young ladies' 
room great names were mentioned, the 
most brilliant cavaliers were passed in re- 
view. All at once the Viscount of Roche- 
foucauld was presented to Mademoiselle de 
Montmirail, with whom, until then, he had 
had nothing to do. Grea: excitement 
among the people of the hiuse. WTiat is 
he ab:u:? They make inquiry. He has 
an only son, but he is still a child. Is it 
for the sake of some nephew 1 They are 
all pretty indifferent matches. 

It is really, then, for the son who is trav- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 2 7 

elling ; they are astonished not to see him 
return ; people get lost in surmises, to 
which Miss Augustine is a complete stran- 
ger. 

The Viscount of Rochef oucauld-Surg^res 
represented one of the younger branches 
of that illustrious family, which, originally 
from the province of Guienne, is connected 
with the dukes of Aquitaine under the 
Carlovingians and with the lords of Lus- 
ignan in the time of the Crusades, when 
the family inaugurated its coat of arms. 

The branch of the Montendre-Surgeres 
begins in the .sixteenth century, in the 
person of Louis de la Rochefoucauld, fifth 
son of Duke Frangois, who had the honour 
of holding over the baptismal font, King 
Frangois I., and of giving him his name. 

One day, Mademoiselle de Montmirail's 
maid, after taking more than usual pains 
with the hair-dressing, presents her with 
an extraordinarily elegant dress. Sur- 
prised, she asks what this means. 



28 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

" But, does n*t Mademoiselle know that 
the Viscount of Rochefoucauld is to come 
to-day, to ask her in marriage ? " 

Without answering, the young girl hur- 
ries the finishing of her toilet, and runs 
and throws herself into her mother's lap. 

" You know,'* she cried, " that I am un- 
happily destined to have a great fortune. 
I would like never to leave you, and if I 
should have the unhappiness to survive 
you, I would consecrate all my fortune to 
doing good works/' 

" Impossible ! " replied the marchioness, 
with icy coldness, " the Viscount of Roche- 
foucauld is to ask you for his son ; he will 
bring him this evening ; examine him care- 
fully ; and if he does n't suit you, you will 
tell me, and I will find some one else for 
you." 

" I have no investigations to make, moth- 
er," rejoined Mademoiselle de Montmirail, 
" and if I must marry, I accept the one 
whom you have chosen." 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 29 

" Very well," said the marchioness, with 
the same indifference, apparently without 
noticing her daughter's emotion. 

She retired with a very full heart, but 
decided upon the sacrifice. 

In the evening the reception was mag- 
nificent ; but imagine the general effect ! 
Mademoiselle de Montmirail, dazzling in 
her grace and freshness, found herself op- 
posite to a little boy not fourteen years old, 
thin, puny, delicate, with childish features, 
utterly embarrassed, and still more bored 
with the part he was made to play. On 
learning that his marriage was at stake, he 
exclaimed sadly, " Alas ! I shan't be able 
to amuse myself any more." 

The two heroes of the evening scarcely 
looked at each other ; and when Madame 
de Montmirail asked her daughter if young 
Ambroise suited her, " As well as anybody 
else," she answered. 

There were several other solemn inter- 
views, when the future pair exchanged not 



30 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

a word. What must this young girl have 
felt — so serious, of a judgment beyond 
her years — when she sought in this poor 
Httle fellow — timid, shame-faced, discon- 
certed at the premature part he was play- 
ing — a counsellor, a support, the centre of 
all her affections. But if she suffered, her 
height and her beauty greatly alarmed poor 
Ambroise, who hardly dared to look at her, 
and asked himself if he was doomed to 
spend his life in an uncomfortable con- 
straint. 

No dream of happiness, we see, presided 
over this strange alliance. In putting her 
seal to the most important act of her life, 
the young girl submits to an order which, 
she thinks, comes directly from heaven ; 
she hears in her ears the sound of the 
words which destroyed her dearest hopes, 
— ^' In the world, against all thine inclina- 
tion.'' She accepts, but with the resigna- 
tion of a generous victim. As for the child 
of fourteen years, who trembUngly signs a 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 3 1 

solemn contract, he executes with timidity 
the will of his father, as he would have 
performed a penance. 

On the loth of April, 1779, were seen 
through the open folding-doors of the Hotel 
de Louvois, the Swiss guardsmen, in full 
uniform, magnificent carriages, horses rich- 
ly caparisoned, liveried servants bearing 

. bouquets of flowers, assembled in the court- 
yard, — all the stir of a magnificent fete. 
Soon, in the midst of a brilliant cortege, 
appeared a lovely and majestic young girl, 
whose emotion was so keen that all the 
delicate orange blossoms trimming her 
dress seemed agitated by a breath of the 
morning air. One looked in vain for the 
hero of the fete, amid the great lords, and 
was resigned, perforce, to find him in a lit- 
tle boy, who, in spite of all his efforts to 
hold up his head, hardly reached the shoul- 
der of his fiancee. The poor child paid 
dearly that day for all the honours of the 

' moment, and his future happiness. As if 



32 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

to throw out better the smallness of his 
stature, all the Swiss Guards were men of 
six feet and more ; so that everybody 
smiled who saw him, and the contrast 
which he made to his charming companion 
drew the attention more upon him than 
upon her, — a preference with which he 
could very easily have dispensed. 

They laughed, then, and we should per- 
haps have had a feeling of sadness, or at 
least of astonishment at this singular as- 
semblage. And yet, time has proved that 
if appearances were deceptive, as is so 
often the case, this time, at least, the real- 
ity was much better than the promise. 
This child will grow truly worthy in all 
points, — in fortune, name, and in the high 
offices which he is called upon to discharge. 
Upright, good, loyal, refined, generous, he 
will make the happiness of his virtuous 
wife, so far as it is possible for a creature 
to satisfy a heart which aspires to the di- 
vine union only. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 33 

Did not the illustrious patron saints 
of Augustine and Ambroise agree to form 
a holy alliance and to bless it from the 
height of heaven ? 

We may believe it when we see the 
treasures that this brave woman heaped up 
for eternity, and the good which she did in 
her new family. 

If even then she had been able to read 
the heart of the timid youth who accompa- 
nied her to the altar, she would have ad- 
mired his having kept the integrity of his 
faith in the midst of a thousand errors and 
prejudices. 

Fearing that they might lose him as 
they had his two older brothers, his par- 
ents had sent him to the country a few 
days after his birth, where he stayed until 
he was six years old, running wild about 
the fields, in snow, ice, and mud, breathing 
the pure air, and revelling in perfect liberty. 
Their wish was to strengthen his health, 
but Providence, to save and preserve his 
3 



34 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

soul, had placed at his side an excellent 
nurse, an honest and simple peasant, who, 
in giving him her material care, sowed in 
his soul the seeds of truth. She^read his 
catechism to him, to which little Ambroise 
listened with great attention. His lively 
imagination was kindled by the lives of the 
saints, and his natural bravery prompted 
him to long for martyrdom. The pious 
nurse, alarmed at the skeptical atmosphere 
breathed by this child, the object of her 
tenderness, and desirous to preserve his 
faith, made him kneel down every morning 
with his face turned towards the village 
church ; then, showing him the steeple, she 
would say : — 

" Look at that cross ; our Lord is there. 
He can grant us all that we ask of Him. 
Let us pray together, and say with me : My 
God, grant that false doctrines may never 
corrupt my heart." 

This prayer was so deeply engraved on 
the dear child's memory, that many years 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 35 

after, when a skeptical teacher, filled with 
the false ideas of the day, intended to instil 
the poison of incredulity into the soul of the 
young man, under an attractive form, feel- 
ing an instinctive fear, he opened the door 
of his alcove, before taking his lesson, and 
kneeling down behind the curtain, repeated 
with faith, — " My God, grant that false 
doctrines may never corrupt my heart/* 
Thanks to this simple prayer he escaped 
many and great dangers. 

But no interchange of words had made 
known to the young woman the disposition 
of her new mentor ; she entered into the 
unknown, relying only upon the Divine 
will, which she had sought to know, and 
from which, after the example of the Sav- 
iour, she derived all her support. 

Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld performed 
the marriage ceremony. After a sumptu- 
ous wedding-feast, and a magnificent party, 
young Ambroise, now Duke de Doudeau- 
ville, glad to see the day end in which his 



36 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

only pleasure had been to hear the drum 
beat, went immediately to Versailles with 
his tutor. As to the bride of fifteen years, 
she was intrusted to the care of her step- 
mother, the Viscountess de la Rochefou- 
cauld, and continued with her during her 
life of young girlhood. This protecting in- 
fluence, though quite different from that of 
Madame de Montmirail, was even less rea- 
sonable, as we shall soon find. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD. 

A NEW life in a new world opens be- 
fore the young and charming woman, who, 
to her great regret, occupies the thoughts 
of a brilliant and idle public. She has 
passed, by direct transition, from the table 
of penance to the sumptuous spectacles of 
court festivals. If she is sometimes in- 
timidated by all this, if the pomp offends 
her modesty, she is never dazzled by it, and 
in following her over what is called the 
theatre of her success, we shall follow her 
happily, always through an arena of pious 
combats, assisting towards the triumph of 
her virtue. 

The Viscountess de la Rochefoucauld, 
proud of her daughter-in-law, insisted that 
she should wear rich and elegant costumes 



38 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

to receive her wedding visits. Society at 
that time was all infatuation ; people were 
carried away by the idol of the day ; the 
flame burned bright and fast, but generally 
was very fleeting. The beauty of the young 
duchess became the object of general ad- 
miration ; it was the common talk ; it was 
only, who could see her ; people crowded 
into the drawing-rooms where she was to 
appear, and when, at last, she was an- 
nounced, the hostess in a loud voice would 
order the chandelier and all the candles to 
be lighted. Shamed by such display, she 
would inwardly pray God to save her from 
these dangerous honours. 

In this high position, the then custom 
demanded that a bride should be presented 
to the public accompanied by all the wed- 
ding train ; she must go to the opera, and 
there, surrounded by her relatives, make a 
low courtesy to the parterre and to the 
boxes, which answered by applause. The 
cheers called forth by the young duchess 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 39 

were so enthusiastic, so redoubled, that 
after the necessary acknowledgments, she 
retired to the back of her box as soon as 
possible. 

When Madame de la Rochefoucauld pre- 
sented her at court, the great gallery at 
Versailles was filled with curious courtiers ; 
they climbed up on chairs to see her the 
better, and the murmurs of admiration 
which reached her ears increased her em- 
barrassment and emotion to such a degree, 
that after receiving a thousand tokens of 
kindness from the king, the princes and 
princesses, she was obliged to ask permis- 
sion of the queen not to go to the play in 
the evening. Several attacks of fever ex- 
piated this fragile triumph. 

A grand quadrille was announced at 
court ; the duchess was begged to take 
part in it ; and an invitation was a polite 
order which one could not resist. Putting 
aside, then, her fears and her repugnance, 
she went to the many rehearsals indis- 



40 Madame de la Rochefottcatdd. 

pensable to the perfect execution of an en- 
tertainment which absorbed all the elegant 
world. We can understand what must have 
been the license of that frivolous youth, 
distracted with pleasure and success, dur- 
ing the laisso'-aller common to rehearsals 
of this kind. Madame de Doudeauville 
learned only to dance. Her grave modesty 
held the boldest at a distance, and she 
compelled this volatile society to admire 
her ingenuousness and her virtue. 

It was at Versailles, first of all, that this 
famous quadrille was to take place. All 
the assemblage of ladies, jealous of her 
who eclipsed them without taking any 
trouble about it, made a plot to get their 
hair dressed before her, and to keep the 
celebrated Leonard up to the last moment. 
During this small feminine intrigue one of 
the coterie slips out and goes in search of 
the young duchess to enjoy her agitation 
and bad temper. But what is her astonish- 
ment when she finds her tranquilly seated, 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 41 

and in the pious occupation of repeating 
vespers, for it was a Sunday. She re- 
turns without delay, edified and discon- 
certed at the same time. Soon after 
Leonard arrives quite out of breath, and 
exclaims, *' Ah ! the naughty things ! they 
have left me only five minutes. Well, for 
all that, your hair shall be well dressed, 
and better than theirs." And so it was. 

This victory mattered little to the hum- 
ble duchess, but she was pleased with the 
good man^s kind intention, and gave him a 
token of her gratitude. 

The success of the evening was com- 
plete ; and while the Viscountess de la 
Rochefoucauld was intoxicated by the hom- 
age lavished on her daughter-in-law, she 
herself said with pious fright, — 

'* Oh, mother, mother ! Do you wish 
then to ruin me 1 " 

Whatever excited so much admiration 
alarmed her delicate conscience. She 
looked upon it as an occasion of sin. And 



42 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

this involuntary connivance with the devil 
horrified her. Once, only once, having 
heard some one say : ^' Her eyes are beau- 
tiful, especially when she raises them to 
heaven," by an instinctive movement she 
looked up at the cornice ; but instantly, 
seized with remorse and confusion, she 
dropped her eyelids and reproached her- 
self her life long for having been surprised 
into vanity. 

It was she who was chosen to beg in 
the chapel at Versailles, on the reception 
of the knights of the order. She acquit- 
ted herself so well, that only a short time 
after, contrary to the court usage, she was 
invited to beg a second time. This innova- 
tion was due to the presence of Paul I., on 
whom the king wished the French ladies 
to make a good impression. The queen 
dispatched a messenger with all speed to 
find the Duchess of Doudeauville, then at 
Turny, to persuade her to come back to 
court, and she lent her own diamonds for 
the occasion. 



Madame de la Rockefotccauld. 43 

This was the outer life of this young 
woman from her fifteenth to her seven- 
teenth year. We know her tastes, her in- 
dination to piety. Let us see, if, in the 
family life at least, she can be compensated 
and give free vent to the impulse of her 
faith. 

The Hotel la Rochefoucauld Surgeres 
was at this period the rendezvous of the 
philosophers and wits of the day. All the 
fashionable theories were discussed there, 
— singular, or rather monstrous combina- 
tion of distorted gospel truths and human 
passions. Philanthropy, indifference in 
religious matters, took the place of the 
strong and true virtues which Christianity 
alone can produce. Pure faith, sacred dog- 
ma were left to the simple, the ignorant, to 
women and children. The intelligent, the 
strong-minded, must content themselves 
with a religion, vague, ideal, indefinite. 
All the Rochefoucauld family were imbued 
with these false doctrines, young Ambroise 



44 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

alone excepted ; and we understand what 
she must have suffered, who came to this 
society adorned even more richly with vir- 
tue than with beauty. Her attitude, though 
always gentle, seemed austere to this jesting 
company, witty and pleasure-loving. Her 
faith was attacked in pleasantry and sar- 
casm ; without daring to address themselves 
directly to her, they threw ridicule upon 
her dearest beliefs. At first she was sadly 
astonished ; her soul had not suspected 
that there could be so much impiety in the 
world. To amazement succeeded painful 
sufferings. This laughing, these strange 
words, caused her intense agony. They 
seemed to ask her with a mocking look, 
Where is thy God ? What torture for a 
soul so pure, so consumed with zeal for the 
Lord's house. 

Still she was silent, for though these 
blasphemies changed in no wise the purity 
of her faith, she would not have been able 
to defend it outwardly ; the studies of that 




r 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 45 

time were not deep enough to enable her 
to combat the numerous arguments with 
which she was pHed. She felt their false- 
ness, but she had sought in religion the 
light for the fulfilling of her duties, and not 
the refutation of doubts which had never 
ruffled her mind. Her silence was set 
down as stupidity. She felt this judgment, 
and suffered from it, but she appeared not 
to notice it. 

Before her marriage, she had requested 
freedom in the exercise of her religion ; 
they had promised it to her, and, notwith- 
standing, all the days of abstinence became 
days of torment to her. Alone she fasted 
at the table of her father-in-law, and each 
time there was a fresh scene. In vain, her 
mother-in-law, who was very fond of her, 
attempted to interpose between her and the 
Viscount of Rochefoucauld ; he promised 
to hold his tongue, but immediately began 
again. His voice was by turns ironical and 
impatient, and the mortifying words were 



46 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

accompanied by sarcasms which pierced 
the heart of the young Christian. She 
dreaded this time of trial to such an ex- 
tent that a part of the night between 
Thursday and Friday was often passed by 
her in prayer. Bursting into tears at the 
foot of her crucifix, she would ask for 
courage to bear the struggle, and when the 
hour came, she commended herself again 
to God, and could hardly control the beat- 
ing of her heart when she sat down to 
table. When there, she seemed a marble 
statue, hearing and understanding noth- 
ing. 

On entering her new family, she had got 
permission to go to mass every day, but it 
was not long before this one consolation 
v/as refused her, on the pretext that it tired 
the horses. She did not insist, wishing to 
reserve the right of exacting that she 
should be taken at least on the Sundays, 
and days of obligation. This prudent and 
firm attitude commanded respect, and she 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 47 

had the happiness, amid so many difficul- 
ties, never to fail in keeping a precept of 
the church. 

Looking upon a frequenting of the thea- 
tre as dangerous, she did not wish to go, 
and privately implored her mother-in-law to 
come to her aid. Madame de la Rochefou- 
cauld, wishing to please her new daughter, 
had recourse to a hundred subterfuges to 
postpone the theatre evenings, which came 
three times a week. Sometimes she would 
complain of headache, she did not feel well 
just as they were about to set out, or per- 
haps she did n't care about the piece they 
were to play. In spite of these maternal 
devices, it was necessary to go now and 
then, when the young duchess, preoccu- 
pied with the thought that she might be of- 
fending God, would follow the large crowd 
with indifference. In order not to partici- 
pate voluntarily in the acting, she tried to 
find some distraction, and in consequence, 
passed for a person of very httle clever- 



48 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

ness. Her coldness contrasted strongly 
with the enthusiasm of her surrounding. 
This same coldness while listening to a 
romance was revolting. They began to 
question her sensibility, which was most 
painful to her. " She appreciates noth- 
ing, she understands nothing," they said. 
These words were accompanied by signifi- 
cant winks and smiles of pity. The con- 
versation would stop when she came into 
the room, or else it would go on, as if they 
did n't know that she had appeared ; all 
this performance did not escape her, and 
she had to use great self-control to seem 
insensible to it. 

She was far from being indifferent, how- 
ever ; all noble and elevated sentiments 
found an echo in her, and all good works 
sympathy. 

If she shut her ears to all reading which 
attacks morals and religion, she was in- 
terested almost too keenly in what are 
called good novels. During the two first 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 49 

years which followed on her marriage, it 
often happened that she was taken well 
into the night by the charm of a story. 
Once, in the midst of a thrilhng passage, 
she heard the clock strike four in the 
morning. There was a moral awaking. 
Surprised at this fascination, she stops, re- 
flects a moment, — *^ If this reading is not 
bad, it is at least a great waste of time," 
and therewith she shuts the book never to 
open it again, or any other of the same 
kind. From that moment she always gave 
to her intellect and her heart the simple 
and solid food of truth. She might often 
be seen before the tabernacle with a little 
book which made her joy, and which she 
put in the number of her dearest treasures. 
Relying on the old friendship at the Jesuit 
College, which had united her father, the 
Marquis de Montmirail, and Alphonse de 
Liguori, she had written to this zealous 
apostle of the religion of Mary and of the 
Blessed Sacrament, to ask his prayers and 
4 



50 .L la RocJufoticauld. 

blessing. The answer, accompamed by a 
copy of "Visits to the Blessed Sacrament,'' 
was received with jo}^!!! gratitude. 

Whilst the young woman bore with pa- 
tience and firmness secret and incessant 
little persecutions, the Duke of Doudeau- 
ville, at a great distance, had the same 
struggle to sustain, and opposed a passive 
resistance. We find his own testimony in 
his memoirs. 

" The persons to whom I owed my re- 
spect and confidence, had been gi\'ing me 
for a year or two books on materiahsm, 
and the worst works of Voltaire, in order 
to shape my mind and educate my heart ; 
moreover, there were conversations in the 
same spirit which were to explain my read- 
ings, and give force to them ; but it was 
not successful, and I made no progress in 
this kind of study. 

" To escape these singular conversations, 
and these readings, which I understood 
very well, I gave myself the appearance of 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 5 1 

not hearing, and preferred to pass for a 
poor fool rather than to deserve the title 
of strong-minded, so much coveted by the 
young nobility of the time. 

" As soon as I could, I would run to my 
room,' fall on my knees and pray God not 
to let the religion be stifled and annihi- 
lated which He alone had put into my 
soul. It gave me content, submission, hap- 
piness, each time that I discharged my 
Christian obligations, just as it has since 
given me consolation, strength, resignation, 
and love of my duties." 

The Duke of Doudeauville adds that he 
returned from time to time to see his 
young wife, but as they were never left 
alone, they could not freely exchange any 
expression of sentiments. They tried to 
make this good by their correspondence, 
which grew tender, active, interesting, both 
finding great pleasure in this commerce of 
thoughts ; but all at once, through some in- 
explicable whim, the Rochefoucauld family 



52 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

took alarm at the frequent letters : What 
could these children be talking about, who 
did n't know each other ? Was the young 
duchess, perhaps, using too strong a Chris- 
tian influence ? To convince themselves, 
they opened her writing-desk during her 
absence, and carried off, to her great regret, 
the very innocent subject of her favorite 
recreation. 

And yet her new family desired to make 
her happy. If they interfered with her 
tastes, it was to give her more enjoyments ; 
if they attacked her faith, her pious prac- 
tices, it was to free her from false preju- 
dices, from a servile bondage ; to raise her 
to the level of her century. The Viscount 
of Rochefoucauld particularly, took upon 
himself to make over this education, which 
he found out of date. He saw very soon that 
he must give up the scheme, but if he must 
needs resign himself to see by his fireside 
a mediaeval figure, which flattered his self- 
love in every other respect, at all events he 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 53 

was very sure that no member of the house- 
hold shared such retrograde notions. Now, 
quite contrary to the impression of the 
skeptical philosopher, the influence of the 
brave woman was beginning to be felt. 
How could one resist this vigorous sweet- 
ness, this patient firmness joined to a good- 
ness so true and so touching ! There was so 
much delicacy in her demeanour, so great 
nobleness in her sentiments, elevation in 
her thoughts, all relations with her were so 
easy, so pleasant, that they had to submit 
to evidence and recognize that the heart of 
the fervent Christian contained treasures of 
tenderness, of devotion and fidelity. The 
viscountess was the first to yield to this 
mastery of virtue. She loved her daughter- 
in-law even more than her own children. 
Madame de Durtal, eldest sister to the 
Duke de Doudeauville, also felt for her a 
fond and deep affection. She was a charm- 
ing person, full of wit and talent, but these 
natural qualities lacked the solid basis of 



54 Madame de la Rochefoticatcld. 

faith and the perfume of piety. We shall 
see, later, how she felt herself drawn to 
God by the power of good example. 

But it was only little by little that Mad- 
ame de Doudeauville exercised this gentle 
sway. Before gaining the souls so dear to 
her, her own had much to suffer, and her 
isolation was still very complete, when they 
announced to her that her husband would 
soon arrive. 

This tidings filled her with hope. She 
had such a need of affection, of a legitimate 
affection, good, simple, true, constant .... 
was she about to experience it .^ . . . . 

She fell to dreaming of happiness as 
her heart understood it : the conformity of 
views and sentiments, reciprocal esteem, 
the union in doing good, the sharing of joys 
and sorrows ; she had much to give : what 
would she receive in return 1 The letters 
of the young man led her to hope that he 
had kept himself upright and pious ; but he 
had had such bad surroundino-s ! That last 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 55 

journey to Italy with his father, might it 
not have changed his ideas ? All these 
thoughts chased each other through the 
head of the young duchess, and preoccu- 
pied her ; she prayed much, and compelled 
herself to appear gay. 

The day being come ; when the noise of 
wheels is heard in the court-yard they all 
rush to greet the travellers ; the young 
woman, agitated, well-nigh frightened, fol- 
lows the move. The carriage stops, the 
carriage door opens, but the poor husband, 
under the pressure of an emotion which 
confuses his wits, looks without seeing any- , 
thing, and stands motionless .... An ex- 
pressive sign from his father wakes him up. 
He gets down, opens his arms to the first 
person he meets, and pressing him tenderly 
to his heart, he exclaims : " My dear wife, 
what happiness to see you again ! " It was 
an old steward of sixty years who received 
his fond embrace .... A few steps off, 
the duchess, pale, astonished at the slight, 



56 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

looks upon the scene, of which she was 
never able to speak with indifference, even 
in her old age. But how can we paint her 
despair when she sees her husband, recov- 
ering from the mistake, place himself be- 
fore her, and declaim in an emphatic tone, 
with ridiculous gestures, a bit of poetry of 
questionable taste. " Oh me !" she says in- 
wardly, " he will be worse than his father ! *' 
And this thought, the saddest that ever 
crossed her soul, caused her to faint. They 
had great difficulty in bringing her to her- 
self again. 

Being taken to her room, she received 
the most zealous care, especially from her 
father-in-law, the author of all this comedy, 
who was in despair at the serious result. 
Wishing to convince himself of the intelli- 
gent capacity of his daughter-in-law, he 
had amused himself by making these bad 
verses, and had arranged the programme 
for his son, too obedient on this occasion. 
" If she accepts these compliments," he 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 5 7 

said to himself, " she is a fool of the first 
order." The ordeal was terrible, but she 
was happy in its consequences. Monsieur 
de la Rochefoucauld began to suspect that 
there was as much intelligence as virtue in 
this young woman, about whom the judg- 
ment had been so much mistaken ; it was 
necessary that the young man should make 
amends for the nonsense of his father ; 
and thus the young couple had a good and 
frank explanation, which did more to link 
their lives than the best endeavours of 
months would have done. Making the 
most of their liberty, the two had a few 
years of happiness as complete as this 
world can offer. 

This sweet intimacy was momentarily 
interrupted by the obligation to appear at 
the court festivities, so brilliant during the 
first years of the reign of Louis XVI. The 
Tuileries, Versailles, Trianon, Marly, each 
in turn kindled with the festive fire. Hunt- 
ing-parties, balls, dramatic parties, concerts. 



5 S Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

amusements of all kinds, succeeded each 
other. 

Alas, it was not long before the thorns 
hidden beneath these flowers began to be 
cruelly felt, and already slander and cal« 
umny mingled their voices with peals of 
laughter in this volatile society which was 
pla)'ing on a precipice. The Duchess of 
Doudeauville, well received by the queen, 
the princesses, and especially by Madame 
Elizabeth, moved amid these gayeties with 
grace and dignity. It was easy to see that 
whether she won approbation or not, it was 
all one to her. The charm which emanated 
from her silenced the expressions of con- 
tempt for the great youth of her husband 
and his excessive timidity. 

Thus the duke relates that, happening to 
be one day at Marly, the king invited him 
to sup with his family. Hardly was he 
seated at table, when he felt himself at- 
tacked by sleep so hea\-ily, that, despite all 
his efforts, he fell into a somnolent condi- 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 59 

tion, without speaking or moving, which 
lasted from the beginning of the repast to 
the end. The duchess, unable to rouse him 
from his lethargy, busied herself so well to 
divert attention from him, that Louis XVI., 
who was perfectly cognizant of this grave 
impropriety, made as though he had not 
noticed it. 

A little while after, the Duke of Dou- 
deauville, wide-awake this time, had an op- 
portunity, in his turn, to take his wife's 
part. The way in which he acquitted him- 
self reflects credit on the two. 

Dining at the • house of the Prince de 
Cond6, he had the pleasure to be seated 
next one of those presumptuous young 
persons who have a way of speaking and 
touching upon every subject in an arbi- 
trary fashion, and who insist above all 
upon distinguishing themselves by a spirit 
of opposition. Among a hundred different 
chance remarks, this young man, without 
suspecting that he was addressing her hus- 



6o Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

band, pronounces the name of the Duchess 

de Doudeauville. No interruption 

He goes on : " She is a woman whose 
charms are universally praised, but she 
has n*t enough talent to please me." And 
the young pedant states reasons, which, 
without calling out any words of surprise, 
make his silent auditors smile. All at once 
one of the guests accosts the Duke of 
Doudeauville by name. His poor neigh- 
bor red, confused, embarrassed, stammers, 
attempts to retract his first assertion. 
'^ Calm yourself, my dear friend," said the 
duke, " be calm, I beg. For a woman like 
Madame de Doudeauville, the essential 
thing is that she should please her hus- 
band. Console yourself, then ; your opin- 
ion will not change mine. I find my wife 
accomplished in every particular." 

In proportion as we advance in this nar- 
rative, which we do not fear to call the life 
of a saint, we shall always find new proofs 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 6 1 

that faith, intelligent religion, illumined 
piety, are admirably united in her heart 
with the tender and legitimate affections 
which they sanctify in order that they may 
be eternal. 

Madame de Doudeauville loved very 
dearly her sister, the Countess of Montes- 
quiou. Brought up by a peculiar mother, 
they had comforted each other in their 
childish sorrows. And when married, they 
continued to see one another as often as 
possible. Their esteem and support in the 
practice of duty amid numerous difficulties 
was mutual. No cloud ever passed across 
their friendship. 

After the death of the Marquis of Cour- 
tenvaux, their grandfather, when the will 
was read to the two young women, Ma- 
dame de Montesquiou being thereby ad- 
vantaged as much as possible, — Madame 
de Doudeauville thus dispossessed of a part 
of her rights, threw herself into her sister's 
arms, crying : '' How glad I am ! " She 




62 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

rejoiced to see an equilibrium of fortunes 
somewhat restored in this way. 

This death of the marquis in July of the 
year 1781, called the duchess to the suc- 
cession of the estates of Montmirail, whose 
title her father had inherited, without the 
enjoyment of possession. When she went 
to claim the estate, there were great fetes 
throughout the country. She bore her 
honours with charming grace, and every- 
where showed her kindness and generosity 
towards the poor — in very truth, such a 
chatelaine as the most brilliant poet's imag- 
ination could paint. 

Faithful to the old traditions of honour 
and chivalry, the Duke of Doudeauville 
had gone into the army, and was obliged 
to leave his family often for a longer 
or shorter time. He suffered from this 
separation, and profited by all his free 
moments to return to a wife whom he 
esteemed and cherished more and more 
each day, whose example and counsels he 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 63 

felt necessary to counterbalance the per- 
fidious insinuations of dangerous friends. 
Invulnerable, as far as his principles were 
concerned, he was on the point of giving 
up religious practices, because of yielding 
to feelings of exaggerated scrupulousness, 
which had the more influence over him, 
as his natural caution predisposed him to 
anxiety. His position obliged him to take 
part in the court fetes and amusements. 
People were astonished to see him ap- 
proach the sacraments in the midst of such 
a worldly atmosphere; it was a want of 
respect for holy things These re- 
flections made an impression upon him, 
and he was going so far as to deprive him- 
self of his paschal communion, when a free 
and confidential talk with his wife showed 
him the snare. She succeeded admirably 
in defining the difference between a duty 
of position and a simple natural tempta- 
tion. 

She who watched over the soul of her 



64 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

husband in this way had another mission to 
fulfil : the wise and faithful wife was to 
become in a still more perfect degree the 
model mother. 



L 



CHAPTER III. 

APOSTLESHIP IN THE FAMILY. 

Among the pictures which filial piety 
preserves with religious respect, because 
they recall the traits of a saint and of a 
mother, there is one which has our prefer- 
ence, and which our eyes consider with 
delight. It is not just yet that of the 
venerated grandmother, but it is a much 
finer picture than the beauty before which 
the crowd paused in admiration ; it is the 
young mother, beaming with happiness, 
who carries in her arms her precious treas- 
ure. Joy, love, tenderness, give a new 
colouring to the habitual expression of an- 
gelic sweetness, and the picture is per- 
fect, for little Ernestine is like a bud close 
to the flower. Happy in existence, she 
rests smilingly on her mother's bosom. 
5 



66 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Happy, indeed, the child placed under 
such an aegis ! . . . . It has all the 
blessings of earth, and all the favours of 
heaven. She who clasps it with ecstasy in 
her arms, who watches by its cradle, is 
not only careful to ward off any danger 
which threatens this frail existence, but she 
seeks for the divine breath in the little 
creature which the Lord has given into her 
keeping, and then respect mingles with her 
tenderness. To preserve innocence, to keep 
this little heart from the attacks of evil, to 
fill it with love and faith, — this was the 
habitual thought, the constant preoccupa- 
tion of the Duchess of Doudeauville. She 
knew that very early impressions, even be- 
fore a reasonable age, are keen and lasting, 
and therefore was very careful that her 
daughter, and the son whom she had two 
years after, should have only good exam- 
ples before their eyes. Obliged to have 
somebody to take her place at times with 
the children, she chose with the greatest 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 67 

care the individuals who were to help her 
in developing these young intelligences, 
and in feeding them with truth. No ridic- 
ulous stories, no absurd tales ; and yet the 
lively and ardent imagination of Ernestine 
and Sosthenes had a share in the marvel- 
lous which charms from the very cradle, 
for the secret instinct of our future great- 
ness causes us to look beyond the horizon. 
But, instead of vain chimeras, the dear 
mother, without leaving realities, trans- 
ported her children into a world of en- 
chantment. She showed them heaven, its 
beauties, the place prepared, the crown 
promised. She talked to them of the an- 
gels, of the Blessed Virgin, and kept these 
gracious figures before their eyes ; but, 
above all, she represented to them the 
child Jesus, the divine model, whose feet 
and hands they lovingly kissed. Then 
came the history of the saints and mar- 
tyrs ; and as nature desires contrasts, in 
opposition to the open heavens, instead 



68 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

of monsters and phantoms, the mother 
showed them hell, the invisible enemy who 
is incessantly prowling for us, and the 
guardian angel charged with our protec- 
tion. She insinuated her own sentiments 
into the minds of the children, who re- 
ceived from her a second life. They loved 
all that she loved ; what she thought beau- 
tiful enchanted them ; when she was af- 
fected, their tears flowed, — a wonderful 
influence, whose extent Madame de Dou- 
deauville fully realized. One might say that 
she had in herself the destiny of her chil- 
dren. 

To preserve their simplicity, and attract- 
ive ingenuousness, she would allow nei- 
ther strangers nor the immediate family to 
make idols of them, or to notice their words 
and little ways ; but she accustomed them 
to be nice to all, cautioning them always to 
thank those who had done them a kind- 
ness. She taught them to do their chari- 
ties graciously, and to know how to deprive 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 69 

themselves of a gratification in order to 
have more to give. Their greatest reward 
was to go to see a poor person, and give 
him the fruit of some sacrifice. Dreading 
for them softness and vanity, the ordinary- 
consequences of luxury and well-being, she 
counteracted these dangerous tendencies 
by precept and example. She made them 
understand the necessity of putting them- 
selves aside, and, showing them the cruci- 
fix, she taught them gently the merit of 
suffering, thus preparing happiness for 
them much more surely than those blind 
mothers who overload their children with 
every possible indulgence, under the pre- 
text of making them enjoy at least their 
early years. These seek to banish any 
shadow of annoyance, and thus weakened, 
the children become incapable of bear- 
ing the trials which await them. The 
mother who is truly wise, while blunting 
the thorn, still allows her child to feel it 
sometimes. She shows him difficulty, aids, 



70 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

encourages him, and makes him feel the 
merit and the happiness of winning a vic- 
tory over himself. It is thus that she fits 
him for the struggles of life. The beauti- 
ful and touching stories of the Old and 
New Testament served admirably as texts 
for the teaching of Madame de Doudeau- 
ville. These striking pictures of vice and 
virtue, of rewards and punishments ; these 
portrayals in glowing colours, the miracles 
which shine out from the simplicity of the 
first ages, — all this, while giving a powerful 
interest to the Bible tales, left an indelible 
impression upon the mind of the dear chil- 
dren. 

It was the mother who received their 
little confidences. Their joys and griefs, 
troubles and delights, all were brought to 
this heart, indulgent without weakness, and 
they ran quickly to tell her of their naugh- 
tiness. She educated their conscience, and 
was always so patient, so kind, that neither 
the brother nor sister thought of finding a 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 7 1 

friend elsewhere. This filial confidence was 
the safeguard of Mademoiselle Ernestine, 
who had the happiness to stay under her 
mother's protection until her marriage. 
The revolutionary storms obliged Madame 
de Doudeauville to be separated several 
times from her son. 

Whilst she discharged her maternal du- 
ties in this way, she continued her apos- 
tolic mission in her husband's family, a 
mission which, though silent, was not the 
less active. Her zeal for God consumed 
her, but her perfect tact made her wait for 
the favourable moment. Madame de la 
Rochefoucauld was the first to yield. 
After admiring her daughter-in-law, she 
soon came to imitate her, and to associate 
herself with her heartily in her practices 
and good works. 

Another person soon gave herself up to 
this happy influence, but for a long time 
secretly. The Countess of Durtal, at the 
same time under the spell of virtue and 



72 Madame de la Rockefoticauld, 

the influence of old prejudices, became the 
victim of internal conflicts, which the 
young duchess did not suspect, and of 
which she was the principal cause. This 
is what she says of it later : — 

" I loved my sister-in-law well, and was 
much loved by her. I never ceased to pray 
for her. When we were together, and I saw 
her adroitly divert the impious or scandal- 
ous conversation which she felt was disa- 
greeable to me, I was extremely touched. 
I longed to show her my gratitude, and to 
speak to her of God, but was always re- 
strained by the fear of not being skilful 
enough to meet her objections. I felt, be- 
sides, that a conversion of this kind is 
oftener the effect of an internal touch of 
grace than of controversy ; all of which 
did not prevent me, however, from writing 
her long letters, in which I refuted one by 
one the errors which I had heard her ex- 
press. I felt myself stronger with my pen 
than I would . have been in conversation ; 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 73 

but as yet I had given her none of this 
manuscript, when one day she came into 
my room at five o'clock in the morning. 
All in tears, she threw herself into my arms, 
and cried, — 

" ' I can't hold out ; I have n't closed my 
eyes the whole night ; everything in you 
preaches to me except your words. Why 
do you never speak to me of God ? * 

" I took her then to my desk, and putting 
in her hands the voluminous pages, said, — 

"'Read, and judge whether I have 
thought of you. * '* 

The ice was broken ; there were long 
talks between the sisters, and when, a few 
days after, Madame de Doudeauville went 
to Luchon, she received a letter from her 
mother-in-law, who announced to her with 
much happiness, that the countess had 
approached the sacrament. Madame de 
Montagu, who was present on the receipt 
of this good news, saw the face of the 
duchess suddenly covered with tears. 



74 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

'* What is the matter ? " she said, taking 
her hand. 

Madame de Doudeauville imparted her 
happiness, and the two friends, filled with 
joy, went to the little neighbouring church 
to express their gratitude to God. It was 
a noble victory ; for Madame de Durtal, 
whose soul was brave and generous, giving 
herself up to piety with fervour, became 
a model of Christian virtues. Her conver- 
sion to religion preceded by only five years 
her truly heroic death. 

The Viscount of Rochefoucauld, harder 
to gain, had, nevertheless, come to do full 
justice to his daughter-in-law. He showed 
her attention, consideration, and even gave 
her marks of particular confidence. The 
duchess responded by kindnesses, by zeal- 
ous little attentions full of delicacy, and 
she was so successful, that the viscount 
ended by finding much charm in her so- 
ciety. This happy transformation was 
to have a result ardently desired by the 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 75 

young woman, and one which the skeptical 
mind of Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld had 
allowed her scarcely to hope for. On a sud- 
den a grave malady declares itself ; danger 
becomes imminent ; the progress of the 
disease is so rapid that Monsieur de Dou- 
deauville, on a visit to one of his estates at 
the time, hastens with all speed to Paris, 
but arrives only at the last moment ; how- 
ever the family angel was watching by 
the dying man, and wishing that the father 
might be united to his children forever. 
Thanks to her care, the viscount received 
the last sacraments with full conscious- 
ness, and gave evident proofs of faith and 
of repentance. Before dying he turned to 
his daughter-in-law, and said, in a trem- 
bling voice, " I hope, my dear child, that 
you are satisfied with me." 

In her sorrow the duchess experienced a 
very sweet consolation ; the Lord, in giv- 
ing her this soul, repaid her generously for 
the sufferings she had endured in entering 



^6 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

her second family. She mourned her 
father-in-law, in whom she had recognized 
a heart upright and kind, beneath the de- 
lusions of his mind ; but she silenced her 
own emotion, to devote herself to the hus- 
band, whose grief was so poignant, that 
for twenty-four hours he could not collect 
himself. 

This death, which happened in 1789, left 
the affairs of the family household in great 
confusion, and left, too, a succession of 
enormous debts, due to the bad administra- 
tion of a steward in whom the viscount had 
full confidence. Charged with the conduct 
of the affairs of Madame de Doudeauville 
as well, in the first year of her married 
life, this incapable man had occasioned a 
deficit of a hundred thousand francs within 
a few months. Justly alarmed at the preci- 
pice upon which they were hanging, the 
duke and the duchess made a resolve 
which proves a determination very rare at 
the age of seventeen. Considering all dis- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 77 

cussion useless, and all amendment im- 
possible, they confided the care of their 
property to another man of business cho- 
sen by them, who found means to repair 
the breach without touching their capital. 
With the same skill, he promptly got into 
order the estate of the Viscount of Roche- 
foucauld. The duchess on all these oc- 
casions had a sound judgment, and a 
presence of mind which was remarkable ; 
her great natural kindness of heart did not 
prevent her from being firm in a resolu- 
tion inspired by justice, tending to a good 
result. 

We have spoken of '89, which is to speak 
of a year of storms. People began to trem- 
ble. Some tried to reassure themselves ; 
but the Duke of Doudeauville, profoundly 
afflicted, and foreseeing only a fatal issue, 
had the happy inspiration to separate his 
own property from that of his wife. His 
relatives and friends sought in vain to dis- 
suade him from a project in which they 



78 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

saw no advantage to him. To give over to 
a woman of twenty-five years a revenue of 
more than a hundred and twenty thousand 
francs was folly in their eyes. Despite 
these numerous protests, the duke per- 
sisted in his resolution, and thus saved the 
fortune of his children. He knew well 
that he could confidently trust the wife 
and mother. 

Being chosen bailiff of Chartres, he had 
to preside in his office over an assembly of 
six hundred persons, for the election of the 
deputies to the States-General. A large 
faction attempted to break his presidency, 
protesting against the royal nomination. 
He stood firm and succeeded in calming 
their minds ; but what was his embarrass- 
ment when, after the opening speech, they 
demanded that the voting should be per 
head and not per order, contrary to the 
instructions given. To triumph over this 
difficulty, the duke pursued a course which, 
while it allowed him to remain faithful to 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 79 

his duty, raised neither murmur nor op- 
position. "Before determining this ques- 
tion/' he said, '' we must verify our creden- 
tials, and must divide in order to hasten 
the process. The halls are in readiness." 
Then inviting the nobles to go out with 
him, and the bishop to march at the head 
of his clergy, he rose and immediately each 
one followed his president. 

The orders being thus separated, the 
duke took great care not to bring them to- 
gether again. Notwithstanding this ingen- 
ious manoeuvre, the entire assembly re- 
turned him a warm vote of thanks ; but not 
having attained the eligible age for national 
representative, he could not take a place in 
the Constituent Assembly. 

He was obliged, then, so to speak, to re- 
main a dumb witness of the insane scenes 
which were the prelude to the bloody ca- 
tastrophe. Absolutely powerless to stop 
the revolutionary tide, he decided to go to 
Italy with all his family. 



8o Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

They went by way of Nice, and he at- 
tempted to cross the Var by fording : it 
was an imprudence ; let us listen while he 
describes this perilous adventure : — 

'^ For several days people had not crossed 
the river, for the abundant rains had trans- 
formed it into a torrent, nearly an eighth of 
a mile in width ; our six horses stopped, 
unable to stem the force and rapidity of 
the water, which came into the carriage in 
quantity. All the efforts of our postilions 
and guides became useless ; the danger was 
increasing, when I saw on the bank, at a 
little distance, six post horses which came 
from Nice. I threw myself on the backs 
of two men, for one would not have been 
enough, to go in search of this unexpected 
succour. The drivers of these horses had 
to be much coaxed, and yielded to my en- 
treaties only when they saw the gleam of 
several louis which I promised them, if 
they would come to our aid ; they had, in 
fact, great trouble to rejoin their carriage. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 8i 

" It was also most difficult to induce my 
guides to carry me back to the perilous 
place from which they had brought me. 
My wife and children were still there. I 
wanted to save them, or perish with them ; 
at last, after the most unheard-of efforts, 
and by the help of God, we emerged from 
the torrent ; we arrived soon after at Nice, 
and thence reached Genoa." 

The rank of Spanish grandee gave con- 
siderable rights to the titled stranger in 
this city. He enjoyed the same privileges 
with the doge, so that it was only neces- 
sary to mention his title, and the chains 
were let down which prevented the pas- 
sage of carriages in most of the streets. 
After the hour for closing the gates, he 
could have them opened, and he profited by 
this to pass his evenings in the neighbor- 
ing country-places, where the greater part 
of the noble families were installed for the 
fine season. The important personages re- 
maining in Genoa, the senators and sover- 



82 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

eigns of the country would request the fa- 
vour of accompanying the young emigrant, 
in order to return with him after the reg- 
ular hour. 

This several months' sojourn was marked 
by an incident which the perfect discretion 
of the good duchess has always concealed, 
but which her husband has revealed for the 
purpose of doing homage to a virtue such 
as one seldom meets with. 

The life of pleasure, beneath an enchant- 
ing sky, was not without its dangers for a 
very active young man of twenty-five, of a 
sensitive and impressionable nature. For 
lack of serious occupation he sought the 
society of agreeable companions, and the 
long hours spent with a beautiful Italian 
woman ended by so completely charming 
him, that he was no longer master of his 
imagination. A little more, and his heart 
would not have belonged to him. 

What must the pious duchess have un- 
dergone then ? She has never alluded to 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 83 

the secret pain which was caused, doubt- 
less, by the change suddenly come over 
her husband, and of which she was per- 
fectly conscious ; she did not speak of it ; 
but this is what she tells us of this period 
of her life : — 

" The world," she says, " had upset all 
the ideas upon the simple and natural re- 
lations of man and God, which I had made 
for myself. I was sick at heart for the 
perversity and error which I discovered. 
It seemed to me that I was participating 
in this impiety, and I dared no longer 
approach the holy table. Once, my fear 
was so great, that while in church I had 
almost fainted. I was devoured by scru- 
ples, which I could neither analyze nor ex- 
plain to my confessor. I addressed myself 
to a Jesuit father ; happily, he was a judi- 
cious man, who never discussed. He cured 
me by prescribing for me an act of obedi- 
ence, which I shall always remember with 
emotion. I was then at Genoa, and so 



84 Madame de la RocJufoucauld. 

unhappy, because of all that was taking 
place within me, that, not content with 
going to confession on the eve of my com- 
munions, I returned again in the morning, 
although I had to go a long distance for it, 
and I could not always decide to approach 
the holy mysteries then. One day when I 
presented myself for a fresh absolution, my 
confessor, instead of listening, said, ad- 
dressing me : ' Are you fasting ? ' ' Yes, 
my father.' ' Very well ; go to the holy ta- 
ble : I ^iU give you communion." I obeyed, 
trembUng, and from that moment my ter- 
rors ceased." 

It is probable that the suffering of the 
heart had contributed to augment and to 
keep up this so painful condition of souL 
However that may be, always mistress of 
herself, and always trusting in the di\ine 
protection, the duchess changed in no re- 
spect her demeanour towards her husband ; 
she evinced the same tenderness towards 
him, and if a shade of sadness passed over 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 85 

her face, this tacit reproach was full of 
sweetness ; it would have roused him who 
merited it, most certainly, if the fascination 
of the moment had not, as usual, thrown 
over the danger the illusion fitted to falsely 
reassure the conscience, " I shall go no 
farther." 

Madame de Doudeauville had too much 
good judgment not to see the only remedy 
needful ; she did not wish to impose it, but 
proposed it with her ordinary gracefulness. 

One day, taking advantage of a letter 
from her sister who announced the resolu- 
tion of going abroad, she expressed to her 
husband the desire to join her. He, deeply 
moved by the proposition, yielded never- 
theless, and in the fear of missing a meet- 
ing at Annecy, he did not defer the depar- 
ture for a moment. But his heart is sick, 
sad, sorrowful ; he exercises his ennui among 
the wild and majestic mountains of Savoy, 
without succeeding in dissipating it ; his 
wife, not ignorant of the cause of this mel- 



86 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

ancholy, although up to this time she had 
maintained a silence full of dignity and dis- 
cretion, now addresses him with a gentle 
serenity, saying affectionately : '' You are 
troubled ; I know it, I see it ; why not 
speak to me ? I will share the trouble 
with you, and may I not, perhaps, lessen 
it?" 

Much touched by these advances, the 
duke responded, by the most entire confi- 
fidence ; he concealed nothing, and the 
weight which oppressed his heart painfully, 
was immediately lightened. '' This avowal," 
he says, '^ solicited with so much grace and 
received with so much indulgence, did me 
good, and reestablished a little calm in my 
soul ; the result was, that I did not return 
to Genoa, in accordance with my previous 
plan." 

We understand that one must have es- 
tablished a dwelling higher than the earth, 
to dare thus to trouble certain waves in 
order to calm them. Madame de Dou- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 87 

deauville, in the eyes of her husband, as 
well as of her friends, was placed in a 
higher sphere, where human passions could 
not reach her. 

A stay of fifteen months in the town of 
Annecy was pleasant to the exiles, and yet 
more improving to their piety. The nu- 
merous souvenirs left by Saint Francis de 
Sales in the country and environs, living 
witnesses of the most ardent charity, im- 
pressed the Duke de Doudeauville. He 
made serious and salutary reflections here ; 
circumstances were favourable to this ; the 
condition of France, the uncertainty and 
gravity of events, human vicissitudes, this 
frailty which he could already comprehend 
and feel, all combined to make him the bet- 
ter appreciate the wisdom of him who had 
consecrated his life to bringing wandering 
souls back to God. While praying by this 
tomb, he felt, in his turn, the desire of 
loudly declaring his faith. Until then, his 
natural timidity made him sensitive to pub- 



88 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

lie opinion. He now adopted the firm res- 
olution to proclaim himself everywhere and 
always by faith and practice. The duchess 
thanked God for the religious growth of 
her husband, and herself tasted the sweets 
of a retreat which the noisy festivities of 
Genoa made all the more precious to her. 
For the trial being past, the soul feels itself 
brave and happy ; what it has suffered by 
the grace of God, it would at no price cut 
out of its life. Hence, while, in following 
with interest the phases of an existence 
which -excites our admiration as much as 
our love, we feel by the beating of our 
heart, the extent of certain sacrifices, we 
would never wish to tear out those pages 
where the apogee of glory is reached to- 
gether with the apogee of suffering. 

The noble exiles had put themselves in 
communication with the house of Sales, 
which kept up some of the pious hospitality 
of the holy bishop. Visits became fre- 
quent, to the satisfaction of both families. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 89 

for it did not take long to recognize the 
merit of Madame de Doudeauville, as emi- 
nent as it was modest. 

She also made, in Savoy, the acquain- 
tance of the Abbe of Etyola, to whom she 
was to render an important service during 
the French Revolution. This worthy ec 
clesiastic, seeing her, taste for the good and 
the poor, spoke to her of a most miserable 
woman, who, although her body was griev- 
ously afflicted, was visited by the Lord 
by sensible favours; for instance, after her 
communions, when she thought herself 
alone in the church, she would give thanks, 
aloud, in a touching way, and she would 
then say remarkable things, inspired, no 
doubt, by the Holy Spirit. Madame de 
Doudeauville went to visit her. Affected 
by the pitiable condition of this poor crea- 
ture, who dragged herself about on her 
knees and elbows, she proposed to cut 
her nails, which had grown extremely long. 
The unfortunate woman, looking atten- 



90 Madafue de la RocJufoiicaiild. 

tively at her whom her sad fate had so 
moved, at first held out her hand as if 
about to accept the ser\dce, but she drew 
it back hastily at the moment when the 
duchess approached with scissors, and said, 
in a voice full of expression, '' It is enough, 
you do not despise the poor, the members 
of Jesus Christ." 

After her return to France, ^Madame de 
Doudeauville learned with pleasure from 
the Abbe d'Etyola, that this holy woman 
had prayed for her before her death. 

The short rest at Annecy, the repose in 
prayer and in the peaceful contemplation of 
the beauties of nature, these were a prep- 
aration for the great struggles for which 
every quarter of France seemed already to 
have given the signal. 

In the beginning of the year 1792, the 
Duke of Doudeamolle took his way back to 
Paris, where he wished to ^-ind up some 
affairs, and to inform himself of the state of 
men's minds. His wife, full of the desire 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 9 1 

to follow him, had begged him to ask his 
friends if it would not be possible to re- 
turn ; the general opinion being favourable, 
they quitted foreign soil. But Monsieur 
de Doudeauville, in spite of his dislike of 
emigration, carried away by the hope of 
saving the king and freeing his country 
from a hateful tyranny, soon separated him- 
self from all that he held most dear. With 
death in his soul, he bade farewell to all 
his own, and betook himself to the banks 
of the Rhine, to put his sword for a time at 
the service of a cause which he believed 
would bring deliverance to his country. 
But after a first sad campaign, when he 
perceived that the powers in league con- 
cealed ambitious designs under the avowed 
project of delivering the king and restor- 
ing order to France, he left the army and 
condemned himself to a weary waiting. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DURING THE REVOLUTION. 

The Duchess of Doudeauville, whom 
the applause of the court left indifferent, 
and who remained calm, humble, and 
consequently strong in prosperity, is now 
ready to meet the perils of the revolution. 
The events which are about to bring her 
in contact with difficulties of every kind, 
will reveal to us how much courage and 
heroic charity is contained in a heart where 
God has established his reign. Faithful to 
her mission, we shall see her always pru- 
dent, but yet more devoted, forgetting her 
own danger to sustain those belonging to 
her, to succour the unhappy, and to defend 
the interests of religion wherever there 
is opportunity. 

At all times, when she is at liberty, we 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 93 

see her by the bed-side of the sick, at the 
prison door ; she finds the priest and ac- 
companies him to the dying ; she saves the 
holy eucharist from profanation, even at 
the peril of her life. Thus, she receives 
one day from the hands of a priest, who 
has just administered the last sacraments, 
and fears that he may be arrested, the 
Pyx in which are several consecrated frag- 
ments ; full of respect, she carries it away 
and places it lovingly in her prie-Dieu, 
where she has already been permitted to 
preserve a wafer to communicate herself 
in danger of death. In spite of the diffi- 
culty of the times, she found means of 
having the Blessed Sacrifice celebrated in 
her house nearly every day. 

She learns that at the Visitation, Rue du 
Bac, after having imprisoned the chaplain, 
they had affixed seals to the tabernacle, 
while waiting for the priest, who had taken 
the civic oath. Profoundly affected at the 
thought of a jprofanation, in order to avoid 



94 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

it, she proposes removing the reserved sac- 
rament at her own risk and peril. The 
superior, while praising her zeal, refuses ; 
for even if she had consented to expose 
herself personally, she could not compro- 
mise, as she must infallibly have done, the 
virtuous duchess and all the nuns. 

In vain is the sentence of death pro- 
nounced against those who give an asylum 
to the faithful priests. Madame de Dou- 
deauville conceals in her house a German 
ecclesiastic, and as considerate as she is 
generous, she desires that the Abbe Vin- 
climput should not know the price at which 
he received his kind hospitality ; but a ser- 
vant in the secret, fearful, no doubt, for his 
mistress, and a little for himself, warns the 
good priest, who exclaims : " I should be 
wretched if my stay here should expose the 
respected people to whom I owe every- 
thing." Notwithstanding the solicitation 
of the good duchess, he changed his asy- 
lum at once ; he is arrested the next day, 
and mounts the scaffold. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 95 

Madame de Doudeauville could not be 
forgotten. On the 28th of May, 1793, 
whilst she is assisting at mass with her 
mother-in-law, and Madame Durtal, they 
tell her that the red bonnets are coming in 
by the court-yard gate. She rises promptly, 
goes in advance of them, and leading them 
to the garden, keeps their attention until 
the end of the Blessed Sacrifice. When 
she judges there has been time for the 
priest to escape, she enters the house with 
her dismal visitors ; being immediately ar- 
rested by them, as well as Madame de la 
Rochefoucauld and the countess, her sister- 
in-law, she is conducted to a house in the 
Rue de Sevres, which served for barracks 
the night before. As she is about to enter, 
Mademoiselle Ernestine, then eleven years 
old, throws herself into her mother s arms, 
and refuses to be separated from her ; but 
they tear her away with violence, and the 
tears and supplications of the poor child 
do not obtain for her permission even to 



96 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

come to see her from whom she had never 
been separated. Her despair rends the 
mother heart, without shaking a courage 
raised above human attack. Madame de 
Doudeauville leaves to her daughter, with 
her blessing, a reassuring word, and sur- 
mounting her own suffering, she tries to al- 
leviate the grief of her companions. They 
are all three put in one ruinous room, 
where four miserable straw mattresses com- 
prise the furniture. The courageous duch- 
ess immediately takes two, putting one on 
top of the other, and makes her mother and 
sister-in-law sit down, lavishing on them 
the most eager care. 

Quite absorbed in making this abode less 
painful, she asks and obtains for them a 
few comforts ; and her kindness and vir- 
tue make such an impression upon their 
guards, that when, after a detention of eight 
days, the noble prisoners are set at liberty, 
there is a general rejoicing. 

But Mademoiselle Ernestine tastes but 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 97 

for a little while the happiness of being 
with her mother again. These ladies, ar- 
rested the second time, are subjected to an 
imprisonment, less rigourous, but longer 
than the first. For two months they had 
to undergo visits, searching, questionings ; 
to hear denunciations, threats of death ; 
and all these called forth the brightness of 
Madame de Doudeauville's virtue, without 
once shaking it : sweet and patient, she 
was at the same time firm and* dignified ; , 
they respected while they admired her. 

One night, having thrown a little water 
out of the window, before going to bed, she 
hears directly a racket all about her room ; 
the guard are alarmed. ''What can that 
extraordinary noise be," say they ; " without 
doubt the prisoner has passed out some 
conspirator's letter." It seems, indeed, as 
if the country may be in danger ! They 
knock at her door, she gets up, opens it, 
and answers quietly, — *' Go and look, my 
7 



98 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

friends." Out of countenance, they retire, 
and leave her to sleep in peace. 

On regaining her liberty, she availed of 
it to occupy herself with her children, and 
to carry aid to numerous sufferers. She 
thought to have breathed freely for awhile 
with her mother and sister-in-law, but these 
two ladies, three days after their deliver- 
ance, are again arrested and shut up this 
time with some English nuns, become 
themselves absolute prisoners in their con- 
vent. What contributed to save Madame 
de Doudeauville, on this occasion, was pre- 
cisely what should have lost her. Being in- 
terrogated at length about her husband, she 
answered with the most loyal frankness ; to 
the invectives launched against the emi- 
grant, she responded, by taking up his de- 
fence most spiritedly, for all the repeated 
signs from her mother-in-law, who trembled 
at her rashness. 

" You are then afflicted at his absence t " 
. they said. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 99 

^* Yes, certainly." 

" Then you miss him ? " 

"Very much." 

" Well, citizen, I see you are a good 
woman ; we will do you no^harm." 

And the next day, in fact, when the 
section heard the report of the interroga- 
tory, instead of condemning, it applauded 
this courageous frankness. 

The wish to fulfil at the same time 
her duty towards her daughter, her sister, 
and her mother, inspired the generous 
duchess with the idea of going with her 
Ernestine to board in this community of 
English ladies where her dear relatives 
were staying. The superior received her 
with open heart ; but scarcely was she in- 
stalled, when a new and yet more terrible 
-misfortune fell upon the prisoners. 

The hour of great sacrifices is for the 
true Christian the hour of heroic virtues. 
If nature, trembling as the cup of bitter- 
ness . approaches, attempts to put it from 



lOO Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

the lips, and utters that cry which es- 
caped from the tenderest love, " Let it 
pass from me," grace adds after the exam- 
ple, and through the strength of the Di- 
vine Saviour, " Not my will, but Thine be 
done." Happy the soul which loses neither 
faith nor trust in time of trial. 

On the 8th of March, 1794, the Countess 
of Durtal, summoned to appear before the 
revolutionary tribunal, tears herself from 
her mother's embrace, and goes to receive 
calmly the sentence of death. Conducted 
to the Conciergerie, she meets there Mon- 
sieur de TAigle, her uncle, the involuntary 
author of her arrest. Admirable design 
of Providence ! While the count groans, 
not over his own fate, but that of a young 
woman whom he has compromised by an 
insignificant letter found upon her writing- 
table, she, sublime in her courage and piety, 
profiting by the few hours that remain, be- 
comes the apostle of the condemned noble- 
man ; happy to buy, by the shedding of her 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. loi 

own blood, the happiness of bringing a 
soul to God. She showed herself so ad- 
mirable up to the very last moment, that 
her guard, affected, prayed with her ; one 
of them was converted, and averred that 
he had never seen so beautiful a death. 

These details were a consolation to 
Madame de Doudeauville, who had made 
fabulous efforts to force her way to the 
Conciergerie. She was losing a sister, a 
sweet companion, whom a conformity of 
religious feeling had made peculiarly dear 
for five years. She was feeling, keenly, 
too, the grief of her mother-in-law ; but the 
thought of eternal reunion gave to her 
resignation a something which was really 
celestial. • 

She learned soon after, with emotion, 
that her uncle, the Marshal of Mouchy- 
Noailles, in going to execution, had first 
pronounced these words of a hero and mar- 
tyr : " At the age of eighteen I mounted 
to the assault for my king ; at eighty, I 
can well mount the scaffold for my God ! *' 



I02 Madame de la. Rochefoucauld. 

Things went on very fast in those times, 
and it was not possible for friendship to 
pour the balm of consolation upon the 
deepest griefs, in peace. Madame de 
Doudeauville sustained the Viscountess 
de la Rochefoucauld after the death of her 
daughter ; these ladies hoped that they 
need no more be parted, and now a decree 
of the Convention obliges all of the nobility 
who are not prisoners to leave the capital. 
This was a fresh stab for these two women, 
each of whom seemed indispensable to the 
other ; and yet it was not a subject of de- 
liberation. The courageous duchess owed 
herself before everything to her husband 
and children ; in remaining voluntarily in 
Paris, she would compromise an existence 
which belonged no more to herself. They 
separated then, notwithstanding the heart- 
breakings. Always in presence of the di- 
vine will, in which she read every event, 
Madame de Doudeauville accepted with 
eqiial submission good and ill, and she 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 103 

knew how to communicate this feeling ad- 
mirably to those who had to do with her. 
Recommending her mother-in-law to the 
superior of the community, she left her re- 
signed, and disposed to await better days. 
But in order to get away, it was neces- 
sary to ask a passport, and for this, she 
needed nine witnesses. In order to pro- 
cure these witnesses, the good duchess who 
knew nobody in the quarter where the con- 
vent was, addresses herself to the gardener, 
who brings her the nine sureties the next 
day. Being arrived at the court of hear- 
ing, she finds a poor blind nun the ob- 
ject of universal mockery ; she approaches 
her kindly, asks about the business which 
brings her there, and seeing in her hand a 
paper needing a signature, she leads her to 
the clerk's office, and so delivers her from 

the public ridicule Patiently she is 

going to wait for her own turn, when a 
witness of her act of charity says to the 
officer : '' I hope you will allow this citizen 



I04 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

to pass who has been here for three or 
four hours." Then they ask her quaUty. 
" Ex-noble," she answers. The questioner, 
who wishes to save her, says quickly, in a 
low voice : " Say, instead, living on your 
income." She understands and repeats 
after him the assertion which in no wise 
compromises her conscience. 

The president, touched by her honesty, 
takes her name, her address, and giving 
her his own, begs her in any need, to have 
recourse to him. " It was," she says, sim- 
ply, "my beauty and my youth which made 
him interest himself for me." 

Withdrawn to the little village of Wis- 
sous, four leagues from Paris, she contin- 
ues her truly apostolic life, all the time 
watching over the education of her chil- 
dren. Several nuns of the Visitation, driven 
from their convent, found with her an open 
hospitality, the retirement, and almost the 
regularity of the cloister. Mesdames de 
Barnage and de Noland take pleasure in 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 105 

giving lessons to Mademoiselle Ernestine, 
and in fitting her to receive her first com- 
munion. When the dear child has reached 
her twelfth year, they transform her moth- 
er's room into a chapel, and then, pri- 
vately, takes place in a simple and touch- 
ing way, the greatest act of her life. They 
had to surround themselves with precau- 
tions, to escape all eyes ; but the holy 
duchess had good and faithful servants, on 
whom she could count. 

During her sojourn at Wissous, Madame 
de Doudeauville learns that a new-born 
baby in the village is running a great risk 
of not receiving baptism, because the pa- 
rents know of no faithful priest. She goes 
to the family instantly, proposes her daugh- 
ter Ernestine for god-mother, and asks 
them to trust the interesting little creature 
to her for a moment. When by her care 
the waters of baptism have made of it a 
child of God, she kisses it with tenderness, 
and while giving it back to the mother, 
watches over her little protegee from afar. 



io6 Madame de la Rochefcnicauld, 

This kiss, this blessing of a saint, can 
but bring the child happiness. After the 
death of her daughter, the pious duchess, 
engrossed with doing in her name and to 
her memory, the greatest possible good, 
will not forget her who was held over the 
baptismal font. Well brought up, and 
afterwards respectably married, the second 
Ernestine will show herself worthy of her 
benefactress, who, to her dying day is to 
count among her chief est joys the prosper- 
ity of a family whose happiness she made. 
She will receive from this family such sin- 
cere tokens of gratitude, as that she will 
require to be consoled for getting her re- 
compense here below. 

As long as a civic priest officiated in the 
parish of Wissous, the duchess never ap- 
peared, but went to hear a mass said pri- 
vately by Monsieur de Bonnatier, in the 
house of Madame de Lucy. But so soon as 
a faithful pastor came back to the little vil- 
lage church, she betook herself there with 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 107 

all speed, and gave ornaments and vases 
for the altar, that there might be no delay 
in celebrating the holy offices worthily. 

It was at the altar that she sought the 
strength and consolation which she needed 
to endure a painful suspense. In almost 
complete ignorance of the fate of her hus- 
band, she often asked herself if he might 
not be in need of the necessaries of life. 
At his departure, she had given him the 
silver plate and her diamonds, but, might 
not the fruits of their sale be already spent } 
Did he know of the death of his sister } 
The imprisonment of his mother 1 With- 
out an answer to the thousand questions 
called forth by a tenderness so justly 
alarmed, she confided her grief to the God 
of her heart, who, while He caused her to 
pass through trial, had always marvellously 
sustained her. 

One day, after renewing her act of faith, 
she finds that a good man has arrived, de- 
puted by the Duke de Doudeauville, to fetch 



io8 Madame de la Rochefotuauld. 

her as well as the children. The measures 
are well taken, he says. By means of a dis- 
guise, she is to pass for his relative, and 
will so cross the frontier. With what ea- 
gerness does the duchess ask news of the 
poor exile. What has become of him ? 
What does he know ? Any exchange of 
letters would have gravely endangered the 
messenger, and it is from his lips that she 
learns the sad regrets of the brother, and 
the anxiety of the father and husband. 
This is how Monsieur de Doudeauville had 
known the death of his sister. 

" One day," he says, " at Aix la Chapelle, 
as I was reading aloud, according to my 
custom, the English and French newspa- 
pers in a reading-room, my hearers saw 
me suddenly turn pale, tremble, and pres- 
ently faint. I had read out of the corner 
of my eye, under the article, Paris, these 
three lines : '' The citizen Durtal, and the 
citizen de I'Aigle were executed yesterday, 
in the Place of the Revolution." It was 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 109 

like being struck by lightning. My sister, 
whom I had loved so tenderly ! She was 
a widow, and if they had killed her, I said 
to myself, would they not also kill the wife, 
the mother of the emigrant ? My existence 
became a perpetual torture, or rather, I 
ceased to live ; the post days, which I 
awaited with a mortal impatience, brought 
me terrible agony. I thought to find in 
each line of the paper the condemnation of 
those who were so dear to me. How does 
one survive such anxiety } 

^^ An excellent friend of Madame de Dou- 
deauville, on learning this tragic event and 
my cruel position, left Brussels with her 
husband in a kind of cart, the only car- 
riage which their limited means allowed 
them, and they both came to bring me the 
one consolation which friendship can offer 
— the weeping and praying together." 

This excellent friend was the Marchion- 
ess of Montagu, a truly admirable woman, 
who was soon to hear that her mother, 



I lo Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

grandmother, and sister had just swollen 
the number of the heroic victims of the 
revolution. 

After some days of agony, the Duke of 
Doudeauville, trembling for his wife and 
children, had trusted to a brave Swiss the 
mission of bringing them to him. There 
was needed for this a sum which was con- 
siderable in proportion to the financial con- 
dition of the exile. He divided with his 
mother-in-law, the Marchioness of Mont- 
mirail, who had taken refuge in England, a 
modest income of four thousand five hun- 
dred francs ; but, what were all privations 
compared with the perspective of this sword 
constantly suspended over the heads which 
he would fain have saved at the price of 
his blood ? 

Madame de Doudeauville, ready to brave 
all perils if she might rejoin her husband, 
made herself ready to start ; but with her 
customary considerateness, before entering 
upon the journey, she inquires whether her 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 1 1 

departure can expose anybody to danger. 
Her devoted servants assure her they 
fear nothing, and, if it were necessary, 
would give their lives to save hers ; but 
her landlord, on being informed, far from 
using the same language, declares that 
the consequences of the flight will fall 
upon him, and that if Madame de Dou- 
deauville leaves his house, he will denounce 
her. She is obliged consequently to give 
up the journey. 

A little while after, this courageous 
woman, impelled by her generous zeal, ex- 
posed herself to the most serious danger. 

The Abbe of Etyola, whom she had 
known at Annecy, being at Bordeaux, in the 
thickest of the revolution, is arrested there 
just as he is about to embark for the Brit- 
ish Isles ; the devoted duchess hears that 
he has been detained, and that the plan is 
to take him to Guyane. She writes in a 
hurry to a person of her acquaintance, beg- 
ging her to hasten and deliver the good 



112 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

abb^, giving him in her name three thousand 
francs. This unsigned note, being taken 
to the Hotel de Mouchy, is found there 
during a domiciliary visit. Madame de 
Doudeauville learns the fact ; immediately 
she calls a faithful servant and begs him 
to accompany her to the revolutionary tri- 
bunal. " But you don't think of doing that, 
madame,'' answers the terrified man. He 
had to follow her. Being arrived, she leaves 
Arnolet at the door, and presents herself, 
alone, for a hearing before the terrible Fou- 
quier-Tainville. He pays no attention to 
her ; standing for two hours, she waits, mo- 
tionless, until compatriots and friends have 
retired. Then, tete-a-tete with the accuser- 
general, she says to him : — 

" I have an important affair to commu- 
nicate to you." 

" My only business is to punish the ene- 
mies of the republic. What have you to 
say 1 This is the place for making denun- 
ciations." 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 1 3 

" It is exactly a denunciation which 
brings me." 

" Very good ; speak citizen." 

" I am about to make such an one as 
you are not accustomed to hear ; it is my- 
self, and myself alone whom I denounce." 

*' It is death that you come to meet." 

" I know ; but I am fulfilling a duty." 

He looks at her with surprise, and lis- 
tens attentively. She relates her history 
in all its details, but without naming any- 
body, and ends by saying : ^^ If there be 
anybody to prosecute it is I." The fierce 
revolutionist answers with stupefaction : 
** Do you know that I have feeling, too ? 
Why do you interest yourself for this 
priest ?" 

" Because he is unfortunate." 

"Ah, yes, I understand, and I have a 
heart ; I have saved a good many people." 

He reassures her, promising that no- 
body shall be prosecuted ; and seeing her 
pale and trembling with fatigue, he offers 



114 Madame de la Rochefoiccatcld. 

her his arm as far as the stairway. This 
bare arm, which seemed stained with the 
blood of numerous and innocent victims, 
prompted a repulsive movement from the 
poor woman, easy to understand. As it 
was offered in kindness, she could not de- 
cline, but she shuddered alwavs at the rec- 
ollection of the support accepted for those 
few seconds. 

On leaving Fouquier-Tainville, she tells 
him her name and address, so that he might 
find her in case of need. He assures her 
again that the case is ended. The Abbe 
d'Etyola is released, in fact, receives the 
three thousand francs, and crosses to Eng- 
land. Shortly after, being returned to An- 
necy, with the title of bishop, he wrote to 
his liberator, and, to testify his gratitude, 
sent her a rehquary containing a joint of 
the finger of Saint Francois de Sales, and 
of Saint Chantal ; he knew that nothing 
could be more acceptable. 

Thefeehng of having a duty to discharge. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 1 5 

or a service to render, gave intrepid cour- 
age to this delicate and sensitive woman. 
Opportunity discovered in her a strength of 
will, a firmness of character, which, always 
joined to the greatest modesty, ended by 
triumphing over every difficulty. 

Her estates having been put into seques- 
tration, she insists upon her rights, and 
energetically defends her interests, which 
are the interests of her children and the 
poor as well. Having learned that they in- 
tended to sell the furniture of the Chateau 
de Montmirail, under the pretext that the 
husband being an emigrant, half the com- 
mon property should be confiscated for 
the good of the state, she went in haste, 
proved that she was married under the 
system of separate marriage settlements, 
and had justice done her. 

Always kind to her own, she joyfully 
welcomed the Viscountess of Rochefou- 
cauld, who hurried back to her after a year 
of captivity. She often visited her sister. 



1 1 6 Madame de la Rochcfotuatild. 

Madame de Montesquieu, who, amid so 
many subjects for alarm, had the sorrow to 
lose a charming little girl, so pious and 
charitable, that she w^anted to give all her 
clothes to cover poor children. Rozamee 
was very fond of her Aunt de Doudeau- 
\ille. A relative, in taking leave of her, 
having said one day, ''What w^ould you 
like me to bring back to you from Paris ? " 
The dear child had answered quickly, 
" Bring me back my aunt." 

The good God called this little angel to 
him at the age of eight years. She thought 
she was going to heaven, but did not wish 
to cause sorrow to her mother ; so, feeling 
herself about to die, she said to her : *' Go 
away, mamma, I am going to sleep." The 
poor mother went away, and the child never 
awoke. Madame de Doudeauville, at the 
news of this death, went from Wissous to 
Maupertuis in a cart, to comfort her sister. 
In wiping away her tears, she little thought 
that in a few years she was about to weep 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 117 

over the most loving and loved of daugh- 
ters. 

About this time, happily, she confided to 
the Abbe Legris-Duval the education of 
her son Sosth'senes, who, up to that time, 
through a succession of circumstances due 
to the misfortunes of the times, had had 
only indifferent masters. The new teacher, 
equally distinguished for his qualities of 
mind and heart, attached his young pupil 
to him, and became the devoted friend of 
the entire family, which he did not again 
leave, and whose sorrows and joys he 
shared. " He was, until his death," says 
the Duke of Doudeauville, "the delight 
and the edification of our home." 

The virtuous duchess did not limit her 
zealous efforts to the family circle, and 
persons of the household. When she saw 
a soul which ignorance or contact with im- 
piety had plunged in gloom, she suffered, 
and sought every opportunity to, make it 
know and taste the truth ; it was rare that 
she was resisted. 



I iS Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Madame Helvetius, after the death of a 
daughter, fell into a profound languor ; her 
friends tried in vain to attach her to life, 
and as religion was a closed book to her, 
she knew not where to rest her heart. Her 
state inspired Madame de Trans with a 
warm interest, and she saw her often, but 
not daring to speak the language of faith 
herself, she sent a nun from time to time, 
to ask after her health. She hoped that the 
good sister would find an opening to slip in 
a word about God for the poor sufferer, but 
the door of the sick-room was always 
closed against her, and the most frightful 
soUtude continued to reign in the heart 
which, lacking hope, was also comfortless. 
This double calamity, in time and eternity, 
profoundly touched Madame de Doudeau- 
ville, to whom Madame de Trans confided 
her vain endeavours. Immediately she pro- 
posed to go to see ^ladame Helvetius her- 
self, dressed as a maid ; and without delay 
she finds the house. She knocks, gives the 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 119 

name of her whom she represents, and ex- 
presses her wish to see the invahtf. They 
hesitate, are even on the point of sending 
her away, but the half-open door has per- 
mitted Madame Helvetius to follow the 
little debate between her custodian and the 
messenger of her friend. The sweet voice 
and the discreet language wherein a great 
interest is manifest, inspires her with a will- 
ingness to see the visitor ; she asks to 
have her shown into the room, bids her sit 
down, inspects her, is astonished, and rec- 
ognizes that it is not a maid with whom 
she has to do. They enter into conversa- 
tion ; the pious duchess approaches the 
subject of her grief with exquisite delicacy. 
She understands, she feels, she wishes 

to alleviate The sick woman, who 

knows her noble visitor by reputation, has 
soon guessed her personality, and strongly 
moved, she cries : " You are Madame de 
Doudeauville ! She only can talk like this." 
Then begins intimacy ; feeling herself un- 



I20 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

derstood, she whom sadness overwhelms 
gives free vent to her tears, to her regrets ; 
the thought of God, as the true and only 
comforter, is not repelled ; it is still some- 
thing that is very vague to a poor soul so 
long lost in error ; but this first interview 
leaves a sweet impression with her, and a 
charm until then unknown. They agree 
to see each other again, and little by little 
daylight comes, light grows stronger, grace 
more urgent. Madame de Doudeauville 
speaks of confession, and herself finds an 
ecclesiastic fitted for this office. The in- 
teresting convert has such confidence in 
her new and holy friend, that she offers to 
make an avowal of her faults to her, before 
telling the priest. Having found faith, 
peace, and hope, iladame Helvetius con- 
tinues to see Madame de Doudeauville, for 
whom she cherishes a gratitude which may 
be called eternal. 

And now the horizon grown less black 
in France, allowed one to begin to breathe 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 121 

there. In the beginning of 1797, the ef- 
forts of the coaHtion were no longer to be 
feared. Bonaparte restored to the armies 
their ancient prestige, and already the for- 
eign powers humbly sued for peace. 

In the interim, the nation, restored to 
itself, burned with desire to wipe off the 
stain of blood with which its brow was 
stained in the gloomy days of '93. This 
awakening of France was specially appar- 
ent when a deputy, on the very day when 
he entered the Cinq-Cents, solicited liberty 
for the Catholic religion, and the abolition 
of the laws directed against the clergy. 
His motion was listened to wdthout anger, 
warmly supported by some, and on the 24th 
of August, 1797, the Chamber voted for the 
new decree. 

These were solemn proofs of a better 
future. A few took advantage of this to 
cross the frontier and see their relatives 
and exiled friends. The courageous duch- 
ess left Paris no later than the 31st of 



122 Madame de la Rochefoitcaicld, 

August, in the same year, and undertook a 
long journey, of which the account is given 
us by Mademoiselle Ernestine, then fifteen 
years old. 

" There are circumstances in life, my 
dear cousin, when one can neither talk with 
those he loves, nor write to them ; but I 
feel sure that there are none w^hich pre- 
vent his thinking of them." 

" If misfortunes are softened by the ten- 
der attentions of friendship, joy shared by 
it is even more delicious. Judge, then, how 
much I need you at this moment, to open 
my heart to you. A witness of my sorrows, 
why can you not be of my happiness ? I 
wish, at least, to describe to you all that I 
have seen, thought, and felt. 

"We left Paris, as you know, on Wednes- 
day, the 31st of August, at four o'clock in 
the morning. My little note must have 
showed you that if my mind was not quite 
awake, at least my sentiment for you has 
never slumbered. 



Madame, de la Rochefoucauld. 123 

" I will not attempt to picture to you the 
emotions that agitated my heart at the mo- 
ment of departure. I was about to see 
again a father whom I had left when a 
little child, but for whom I had cherished 
the tenderest feelings. You know that his 
absence became more painful to me in pro- 
portion as my age made me better under- 
stand and feel it. 

" Our guide did not reach the first post 
station until an hour and a half after us. 
Oh, how long the time seemed to me. 
Different thoughts were suggested by my 
imagination. I did n't know what to at- 
tribute this delay to, and the fear of seeing 
our journey fall through, passed quickly 
from my head to my heart. I saw hap- 
piness elude me at the very moment I was 
about to seize it. At last we perceived the 
carriage. We were soon consoled for our 
long waiting, for whilst we were lament- 
ing, they had been mending a wheel, which 
would have broken in a short time, spilling 



124 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

us out, I don't know where. There is rea- 
son in saying that a small evil is often the 
cause of a great good. The next morning 
at nine o'clock we were at Auxerre, where 
we were to have slept the night before. To 
remedy the delay, and regain that wretched 
time, which, according to Sosthenes, will 
always get lost, it was agreed that we 
should spend the next night on the road. 
We stopped for supper, however, for my 
mother thought that, as we had had no 
dinner, it was best to make one meal a 
day. 

" I shall not be able to mention all the 
places through which we passed, but must 
at least tell you how we had to cross for- 
ests, whose sombre look made me shiver, 
which woke me up a little. Arrived at 
Auxonne in the night, they would not give 
us horses. After a pretty lively dispute, 
we had recourse to the municipal officers, 
who interfered in our favor, happily, and 
we set out at last, led by postilions in a 
very bad humor. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 125 

" Hardly do we leave the town when we 
perceive three men following our carriage ; 
then, of a sudden, they leave us, and run 
after the other, already at some distance. 
What a fright ! It is night ; we are in a 
very solitary spot, and as fear magnifies 
objects, I charitably informed my mother 
that we were then in the midst of a wood. 

There was n't the vestige of one For 

all that, I was n't the only frightened one. 
Judge of the situation of your cousin who 
fears robbers in the heart of Paris, in a 
well-closed house, and who now finds her- 
self in the open fields, guided by dissatis- 
fied postilions, and in a carriage where are 
only women. Sosthenes was in the other, 
for surely, if he had been in ours, we 
should not have been allowed to be fright- 
ened. 

" After all we had only the apprehension 
without the evil. At Dole, new obstacles 
awaited us ; the gates were closed, and we 
were forced to resign ourselves to passing 



126 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

the night at an inn outside of the town. It 
was one o'clock. Consequently, we found 
everybody in bed and asleep. A girl came 
and opened the door to us, however, with a 
bad enough grace, and as the rooms were 
taken, she lodged us in a pretty narrow pas- 
sage, where four dirty beds were ranged in 
a row, with their heads against the wall, 
like a hospital, and we were very glad of 
this fine palace. With our candle on the 
floor, for want of a table, and our two 
chairs, for four people, we were better off 
than in the street. 

" Monsieur Filietaz took Sosthenes into 
his room, which was much more beautiful, 
but, as it would seem, not a great deal 
cleaner, for the next day, when he came 
into our carriage, my brother brought us 
an insect which I do not care to name, but 
of the most unpleasant kind. 

" At half past three they make us get up 
in order to start at five, and I give myself 
up to sorrow for losing, unnecessarily, this 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 127 

time from sleep. We soon reach Poligny, 
— the first town of the Jura. I cannot 
describe to you the impression made upon 
me by this grand country, with its majestic 
mountains. Now there are only jagged 
rocks, frightful precipices, impetuous tor- 
rents, gigantic pines which seem to reach 
the sky ; then, without transition, are prai- 
ries covered with flocks, with huts, and 
even cultivated fields. 

'' Although Morez is not the extreme 
frontier, it is the place where the Custom- 
house does its office. So we had to show 
everything that we had. When they had 
examined and seen all, they put leaden 
seals upon our parcels ; with this precau- 
tion, and the payment of a few crowns, 
they allowed us to pass on quietly. Hardly 
had we crossed the French boundary when 
Monsieur Filietaz got down from his car- 
riage, and came to tell us with the greatest 
feeling, that we were in Switzerland. I 
could not contain myself for joy, and I 



128 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

thought I saw on all the faces of the good 
Swiss the impress of my happiness. Soon 
we perceived Nyon. We had a small hope 
of finding my father there. We stopped 
at the inn, where Madame Filietaz awaited 
her husband ; but even before embracing 
her, he came to tell us that the person 
whom we expected was not there. And 
much more attentive to our interests than to 
his own, he found horses which could take 
us on immediately to Lausanne. Unhap- 
pily, a fine gentleman, named Prevost, ap- 
peared, who, while saying how sensitive he 
was, stated in a way that was not at all 
so, that we ought n't to dream of starting 
that day, because we should n't arrive until 
midnight, and should have to wake up my 
father. My mother made up her mind to 
this inconvenience ; but Monsieur Prevost 
pretended that our nocturnal arrival would 
be the town talk, which would be very 
compromising. This reason decided every- 
thing, and it was arranged that we should 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 129 

not leave until the next day, at daybreak. 
I was very angry with this sensitive Mon- 
sieur Provost, who retarded our happiness 
so pitilessly. Finally, the longed-for morn- 
ing came, and after being on the road for 
a few leagues, we perceived Lausanne ; ar- 
rived at the gates, we left the carriage, and 
Monsieur Prevost made us cross through a 
part of the town without saying whether 
we were getting any nearer. He made us 
climb a very dark stairway up to the fourth 
story, preserving a profound silence all the 
time. Then he opened a little door, disap- 
peared, and I found myself in my father s 
arms. 

" Must I try to tell you what I felt t 
No ; your heart is too delicate not to guess. 
And, besides, to describe such sentiments 
would be to weaken them." 

The enjoyment was, indeed, very sweet, 

on both sides. " The happiness which this 

reunion gave me,'' says Monsieur de Dou- 

deauville, " was beyond all description. We 

9 



1 30 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

had been separated for five years, and I 
had almost despaired of our meeting. 

'' I passed my days luxuriating in the 
mar\'ellous change of my situation, in lis- 
tening to the recital of the sufferings and 
the alarms of my dear travellers, in hearing 
the details of all that wisdom, courage, and 
tenderness had inspired a good mother to 
do for the welfare of our children. 

" I was never tired of hearing them re- 
peat what they had already told me, and 
even what I knew before their arrival ; my 
thoughts had been so constantly turned 
towards France and my absent family. 
And now I had eyes, ears, and heart, only 
to seize, understand, and make my own, so 
to speak, that past in which I had had no 
part.'' 

At the end of two months they were 
obliged to part again, for the presence of 
Madame de Doudeauville was indispensa- 
ble to the preserv^ation of her numerous es- 
tates, and her husband could not put his 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 131 

foot on French soil without danger. They 
said their sad good-byes. But in spite of 
all his resolutions to wait for a signal, the 
poor emigrant could not hold out for long, 
and soon, aided by the passport of a Swiss 
merchant, braving a thousand dangers, 
thanks to skilful stratagems and the now 
often used currency of daring, he arrives 
at Orleans, where he reads aloud before a 
large audience in a book-shop, this article 
in a paper : " The sentence of death is 
pronounced anew against every emigrant, 
and if he be recognized, he shall be shot in 
twenty-four hours' time." 

More alarmed than content, the good 
duchess hastens to greet her husband, 
whose extreme tranquillity reassures her at 
first. But two days after, hearing that he . 
has been denounced to the police, she begs 

and conjures him to depart It is 

impossible to resist her entreaty. She 
gives the poor traveller a book of Saint 
Francois de Sales, to console him on the 



132 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

way. Wearied with so great emotion, she 
dreams of making a retreat, and consecrates 
ten days to repose, under the eye of the 
Lord. That she may be the quieter, she 
goes every morning to the Convent of the 
Filles-Dieu, near the Saint-Denis gate, and 
does not come back to her Uttle family 
until the evening. These hours of solitude 
recall to her those which were associated 
with her first communion ; a mingling of 
holy desires, of delicious transports, of pro- 
phetic warnings, and of pious resignation. 
Many years have passed since, and now, in 
the strength of age, in presence not of a 
simple presentiment, but with the full un- 
derstanding of sacrifice, this generous soul 
renews the giving of her entire self, asking 
of God in return, that His reign should 
come, that He should be known, loved, and 
glorified. As if to show that her offering 
is accepted, the Holy Spirit inspires the 
superior of the convent to give her as a 
souvenir of the retreat, a precious relic of 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 133 

the true cross and of the holy crown of 
thorns. 

A serious thought then occupied Mad- 
ame de Doudeauville ; she began to con- 
sider about determining the future of her 
daughter, who had just entered her seven- 
teenth year. The uncertainty of events 
doubtless contributed to her making this 
hasty resolution ; not being able to fore- 
see how much longer the head of the 
family would be kept away, she looked 
about for a protector outside of the family 
for the beloved daughter from whom she 
would fain never have been separated. But 
before trusting her to other hands, she 
drew out for her some written counsels, 
where we see with the mother s tenderness, 
the ardent and enlightened faith of the 
strong Christian. These counsels seem to 
us so wise that we do not fear to reproduce 
them entire ; first, because they may serve 
for example and instruction, but also be- 
cause they will make known her who die- 



1 34 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

tated them better than anything which we 
could say. She advises nothing that she 
has not practised herself in a much higher 
degree. The reflections which she incul- 
cates in her daughter were the habitual 
nourishment of her soul. The sentiments 
with which she desires to animate her filled 
her own heart and directed her every ac- 
tion. It is thus that she loved God and 
her neighbor, with this difference, that she 
gives of her plenitude what a prudent 
discretion induces her to impose upon 
others, with reserve ; knowing no time, no 
repose in the exercise of virtue, she went 
on always growing in humility and charity. 
These counsels are addressed to an intel- 
ligent young girl, spirited, generous, zeal- 
ous, admirably gifted for the family and too 
well for the world, perfectly brought up, but 
whose accomplishments, — I had almost 
said whose qualities, — are a danger, as the 
fears expressed by her mother indicate : so 
true is it that it is not enough that God 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 135 

and those who represent Him should work 
directly for our sanctification : it is a per- 
sonal work ; it must be that it cost us 
something; and the more the Lord has 
given, the more will He ask. 



CHAPTER V. 

COUNSELS TO HER DAUGHTER. 

" You will think it singular, my dear Er- 
nestine, that, having you always under my 
eye, I should still think it necessary to 
write to you. But I know that you will 
have as great pleasure in receiving marks 
of my engrossing interest in you, as I have 
desire to multiply them. My advice, my 
counsels, which your heart always appreci- 
ates, even when they oppose its tastes and 
inclinations, will have, I am sure, yet more 
value if they are written. There are some^ 
besides, which I have reserved for a more 
advanced age, and the new estate which 
you are about to enter induces me to com- 
municate them to you. 

" I am about to open my heart to you, 
then, to let you see the hopes which are 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 137 

given me by all that God has done in you, 
the virtues which I have a right to expect 
from the germs which rejoiced me in your 
infancy, and also from the qualities which 
a great elevation of sentiment, joined to 
happy gifts of intelligence, should cultivate 
to a high degree in you. I shall not con- 
ceal from you my apprehensions, while pre- 
ferring that you should not suspect their 
full extent ; for you are not yet a mother ; 
you would not be able to understand all 
the happiness and pain, the delights and 
anxieties that this feeling brings. 

" I will also make my confession to you : 
it is necessary to my repose. I am far from 
attributing to you, my child, the faults that 
I find in you ; it is the small experience I 
had when I began your education ; it is my 
own shortcomings that I accuse, — above 
all my small virtue which held back God's 
blessings from you. With this conviction, 
judge how important I feel it to fortify you 
against the dangers which alarm me, and 



% 



138 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

pardon me if I exaggerate a little. See 
only the tender sentiment of a Christian 
mother, who trembles at the moment of 
separation from a cherished daughter. Im- 
agine a merchant, trusting to the sea his 
treasure, the fruit of his watchings, of his 
toils, his only hope. He beholds at the 
same time the haven where he would wish 
to see it enter, and the innumerable perils 
which may prevent. He hears on all sides 
the noise of the waves that may engulf it ; 
picture to yourself his agitation, his tor- 
ture, and you will have an imperfect idea 
of the anguish and perplexities of your 
mother. One only thought has power to 
calm her, and therefore, I return to it inces- 
santly ; it is that of the religious principles 
which I have always known to be in you, 
and the liveliness of your faith. I will not 
say your piety, for I do not think that that 
name should be given to your actual way 
of life ; but if you persevere, this precious 
gift will be granted to you for a recom- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 139 

pense, and will make the road easy where 
you are already walking. 

" My one desh'e is, that you should ac- 
custom yourself to sound practice, without 
which your faith would soon grow weak. 
The world and its friends would exercise 
their empire over you ; their maxims would 
not seem so strange to you ; little by little 
they might please and end by seducing 
you. Regard for public opinion, which has 
already made some impression upon you, 

would hasten your overthrow I 

pause, my child, and can bear no longer 
the sight of such a misfortune ; the way 
to avoid it is to animate your faith by the 
study of our holy religion. Apply yourself 
to understand what she asks of you, and 
what she promises to you. I feel the more 
earnestness, my child, in encouraging you 
to enter upon this research, because it will 
occupy you with the only method of find- 
ing lasting happiness, and of obtaining it 
for all who will be dependent upon you. 



140 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Without her heavenly succour, you may, it 
is very true, have moments of enjoyment 
and of pleasure, and you may cause others 
to feel them, but the difference ! And how 
dearly you would pay for these short sea- 
sons of illusion ! Your enjoyments would 
never be without anxiety, nor your pleas- 
ures without remorse. The happiness of 
which I speak, and which religion offers 
to you, since it has its source in purity of 
heart, and in the peace of soul which is 
the happy result, can never be troubled by 
events nor circumstances. It will spread 
a charm over all your life. The world may 
be overthrown, empires destroyed, men 
may tear each other asunder, but there is 
no human power which can take from us 
this precious gift, and having it we can 
bear all. It is not only the impression of 
a sentiment which makes me use this lan- 
guage to you, it is the fruit of my experi- 
ence. May I be able to communicate to 
your soul the convictions which I have 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 141 

drawn from it. Whoever has gone through 
the French revolution and survived it, can 
no longer doubt the nothingness of the 
things of this earth. I have seen honours, 
titles vanish away, and with them those 
who wore them ; the greatest and best 
secured fortunes have been annihilated ; 
great names trailed in the mud ; brilliant 
reputations tarnished ; the most useful in- 
stitutions have come to naught. At last 
the throne and the altar were thrown down ; 
this fine dream with which I had seen men 
intoxicated, to which they had sacrificed 
their health, their repose, their conscience ; 
eight years later it had no existence. 

** In this total overthrow has not my soul 
had reason to cry aloud more than once, 
' Thou alone art great, O my God. Thou 
only art stable. Thou alone meritest that 
we should love Thee above all. Thou only 
canst promise and give us a lasting hap- 
piness. All human supports on which I 
stayed myself have crumbled away. Thou 



142 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

only remainest to me ; but with this firm 
prop I can endure all.' 

" Give, then, to God, and undividedly, the 
first years at your disposal. Thanks be to 
heaven, your infancy was consecrated to 
Him. Consecrate to Him also your youth, 
and do not question the liberaHty with 
which this God of goodness will reward 
your sacrifices and encourage your first 
steps. Once in the way where He would 
have you, He will take care Himself to 
level the obstructions which you may find 
there, and will make easy for you the sec- 
ond part of the precept, the love of your 
neighbour, for then you will everywhere 
love and respect His work, but how espe- 
cially in the unfortunate, the needy, in that 
portion of humanity which is stripped of all 
temporal advantages and under w^hich He 
presents Himself to you, while He waits 
to compensate it liberally one day for the 
neglect of men. What will you not ren- 
der to the Lord for that He has put into 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 143 

your hands a means so simple and so pre- 
cious of expiating the faults inseparable 
from the enjoyment of a large fortune, and 
of getting your pardon while all the time 
yielding to the gentle inclination of your 
heart. In your superiors you will see the 
authority of God, and the submission, the 
consideration which you owe them, will 
become easy to you. 

"With your inferiors your manner of 
command will not be severe ; your rule 
will be one of kindness. Impartiality with 
all carefulness being your law, prejudice 
will not influence your decisions ; self-in- 
terest will have no access to you. You 
will rather seek him who has less desire to 
make himself known, and all will bless your 
justice and your indulgence, and will give 
honour to God for whom you act. 

" In all men you will see His image ; they 
will find you unceasingly ready to be of 
use to them. Feeling no rivalry with your 
equals, — you will have pleasure in their 



144 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

advantage ; their successes will become 
your own. Considering all as members of 
one and the same family, destined to run 
the same course, looking to the same end, 
— the glory of the Chief, and the happiness 
of all, will be ever the motives that incite 
you. In this way, how will you not cause 
our holy religion to be cherished. And 
who knows if God, to encourage your 
weak efforts and to reward your sacrifices, 
will not make use of you to arrest some 
souls on the point of abandoning Him, or, 
to bring back others already fallen away. 
Ah, my child, if He grant you this favour, 
your entire life will not suffice to thank 
Him. How admirable is He when He 
uses such frail instruments to work His 
mercies, and what happiness for him whom 
He deigns to employ ! . . . . Keep your 
heart thus ready to do generously whatever 
He may ask of you. But let us see now 
what are the general and particular obsta- 
cles which you will have to combat. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 145 

" I do not pretend that religion does not 
demand sacrifices ; I know, and I have ex- 
perienced only too well, that we are all born 
with a proneness to evil, which it is very 
difficult to overcome, and that before reach- 
ing that calm, that peace of which I have 
spoken to you, and which may be looked 
upon as a foretaste of heaven, one must 
have won many victories over himself. But 
I ask you, even if you were without relig- 
ion, would you not experience the desire to 
rule the passions which might have power 
to master you ? Would you not think, you 
who are constantly praising this human 
courage, whose consequences are some- 
times so disastrous ; that there is grandeur 
of soul, nobleness, in making one's self 
master of all his movements, or at least in 
being able always to curb their effects ? It 
seems to me that the greatest conqueror is 
nothing, when compared with the simple 
and virtuous man, whose whole study has 
been to know himself, and his glory, to rule 
10 



146 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

himself ; who, by the happy habit of re- 
pressing himself, has come to have nothing 
ill-regulated ; who, always with calmness, 
judges healthily of things, and chooses the 
part which he deems the better, without be- 
ing blinded by the impetuosity of his pas- 
sions. 

''The philosophers strove to make it 
thought that they had reached this desir- 
able condition. Religion gives me the 
means of arriving there at the same time 
that she proves to me the necessity of so 
doing ; she does more ; she knows how to 
make me love sacrifice, by showing it to 
me on the road to heaven. Ah ! how much 
more does a short meditation on the life 
and passion of our Lord accomplish, than 
all the arguments of cold reason, which tell 
us, indeed, what is to be done, but do not 
give us the strength to attain to it. It is 
at the foot of your crucifix, my child, that 
you will learn how to taste of real good ; 
there you will appreciate that which the 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 147 

world has to offer, and you will have no 
further pain in detaching yourself from it. 
These illusions vanish, and when the heart 
has once known truth, there is no other at- 
traction for it. The cross will make you 
feel the heaviness of the iron chains which 
the world imposes, and the lightness of the 
gospel yoke. May the Lord give you grace 
to wear it always, and spare you the ago- 
nizing regret of having wavered between 
the world and Him. For I should never 
be able to bear the thought that you could 
fail to know Him, and thus make me sorry 
that I had given you birth. Know your 
Master, and you will have but one fear, — 
that of not doing enough for Him, After 
your falls, seek His goodness with the same 
confidence, which, in your early years, 
made you come and confess the faults of 
which I was sometimes ignorant ; through 
your ingenuousness, you found in my ten- 
derness the consolation and the peace which 
you had lost. With what joy I pressed 



148 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

you then to my heart ; often your tears 
made my own to flow, and I had enough to 
do in keeping them back. Well, my child, 
may this love, this indulgence, give you a 
feeble idea of the mercy, the tenderness of 
God's heart. If you have found these qual- 
ities in His weak, imperfect creature, how 
much more may you expect of Him from 
whom they proceed, who was the source 
of them, and the limits of whose love for 
you are only in His immensity. Remember 
again, that my cares, my tenderness for you 
seemed to increase in proportion to your 
needs, or your infirmities ; and believe that 
your Heavenly Father experiences the same 
thing, but in the measure of a God. He 
is, then, a kind Physician who knows your 
wounds, who sounds the depth of them, 
who measures their extent, and sees their 
danger. He holds in His hand the reme- 
dies for your healing, and burns with the 
desire to apply them. One single turning 
oi^ly towards Him suffices, that His justice 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 149 

permit Him to satisfy His mercy, and then 
He pours that salutary balm which softens 
whatever of bitter the remedies may have 
held, and hastens their good result. 

'* I confess, my child, that of all the sen- 
timents I have experienced, that of mater- 
nity, a sentiment which takes away from 
none other, and yet surpasses all, has ever 
seemed to me most fitly to represent 
the love of God for His creatures. I con- 
strain myself at times to think of Him as 
my judge, but I always find my Father 
again ! And however faithless I have been, 
however unworthy of being in the number 
of His children, I leave all to His love, 
and repeat to Him unceasingly : ' It is in 
Thee, Lord, and in Thee alone, that I have 
put my trust ; I cannot be confounded ; I 
have Thy word of promise/ • 

" May the heart of my dear child, then, 
filled with firm hope, attach itself to Him 
who alone can bring this hope to pass. 
This is a happiness of which it behooves 



150 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

not my ignorance, my weakness to speak, 
but of which a sensitive soul, detached 
from worldly interests, might have, I think, 
a faint idea. To love, and to love without 
limit, to love through all eternity the Object 
the most lovely, the most adorable, the 
source of every good, to have no longer 
cause to fear occasions of offending Him ; 
to see as God sees, to feel as He does, to 
be admitted to His divine intercourse, — 
what blessed happiness ! 

" Oh, my dear child ; if by my example, 
my faults, perhaps by my too great weak- 
ness towards you, I have given you any 
impression of religion other than the true 
one, it is at the feet of Jesus Christ that 
I ask your pardon for it ; it is there that I 
pray Him that the punishments which my 
faults merit, may not fall on you. At His 
feet, too, I can attest that I have never 
made other wishes for you, than those 
which aimed at making you virtuous, and 
assuring to you the possession of this hap- 
piness. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 5 1 

"I call to my mind, my child, that, 
scarcely were you born, when I offered you 
to God ; and in the moment when I felt 
with transport the joy of being a mother, 
when my sufferings seemed to me too sweet 
since you were the price of them, when I 
would have found it just to pay with my life 
the happiness of giving birth to you, — ah, 
well, in that same moment I asked my God 
not to preserve you, except you were to love 
Him eternally. He received my sacrifice, 
and He has left you in existence ; is it not 
allowed me to hope that my prayer will be 
accomplished in all its greatness ? 

''I conjure Thee, O God of goodness, 
have no regard to the weakness of her who 
prays to Thee, but consider that she in- 
tercedes for a child whom Thou hast given 
her in Thy mercy ; that this child is Thine, 
that I have never forgotten Thy right to 
her ; I have even feared that I might claim 
her as my own too much. Thou knowest 
that I never asked that she should have 



152 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

worldly goods nor any like thing ; but only 
this celestial dew whose preciousness I 
knew. Pour it upon her abundantly, my 
God. Thou only canst know how dear she 

is to rhe Well, I accept whatever 

Thou hast in store for her, so that she be 
always faithful to Thee, and that after 
transmitting to her children the precious 
deposit of the faith in all its integrity, she 
may then love Thee and praise Thee for- 
ever." 

These lines were written some months 
before the marriage. As the decisive hour 
approached, the wise mother specifies 
clearly what her heart had only sketched 

out. 

*' Paris, Jiay l5fA, 1798. 

" You ask me, my dear Ernestine, to give 
you a rule of conduct, an outline of the 
manner in which it will be well for you to 
mark out your time and dispose of it. I be- 
gan by refusing you, convinced of my own 
incompetence, and thinking it better that 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 153 

you should make this rule of life for your- 
self. Howbeit, touched by your confidence, 
I am about to answer you, having first 
asked for light from the Holy Spirit. This 
practice of regulating the employment of 
time, has been consecrated by the masters 
of the spiritual life ; the Fenelons, the 
Saint Frangois de Sales, have always ad- 
vised it for souls who would live Chris- 
tianly, avoid offending God, and make some 
progress in virtue. I doubt not that great 
graces are connected with it. At the time 
of my marriage, although still very young, 
I felt this necessity, and reaped much fruit 
from the rules planned by my fourteen 
year's old head, and modified later by a 
holy director. My knowledge of your char- 
acter makes me add, my dear child, that 
this practice is indispensable to you. 

" The little aptitude you have for all that 
comes under the head of pious practices, 
your fear of everything that brings you 
under subjection, the kind of prejudice you 



154 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

have adopted, without much knowing why, 
against what you call little observances, — 
all this make it necessary for you to pre- 
scribe certain habits for yourself, with the 
resolution of being faithful to them. It is 
precisely because you dread everything 
that is small, that you must look at your 
motives supernaturally, and regard it as be- 
neath you to be guided only by your hu- 
mour or caprice. 

"The rule of life, when it has been en- 
tered upon, will realize this aim, and will 
procure you the advantages of which I 
speak. All your actions will have the 
stamp of obedience, and that is the surest 
way of arriving, even when you don't sus- 
pect it, at the highest perfection. But I 
hasten to come to the details of the obliga- 
tions which this rule will impose upon you, 
for I see already your young courage is 
alarmed, and though your reason has asked 
this of me, yet your disposition fears it, 
tells you that it is good only for religious, 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 155 

and makes you dread the severity. It is 
important, then, to prove to you that ReHg- 
ion proportions herself to the weakness of 
our age, our health, even of our character ; 
that she asks of us only what is reasonable, 
and does but consecrate our duties. 

''employment of the day. 

" 1st. You will stay eight hours in your 
bed : at your age this time for repose is 
necessary. The hour, then, when you go 
to bed, will determine your hour for getting 
up the next day ; but, except in case of 
unusual indisposition, or extraordinary fa- 
tigue, you will be exact in limiting yourself 
to the eight hours. 

" 2d. Your first thought in waking will 
be for God ; you will offer your actions to 
Him, and invoke your good angel. 

" 3d. As soon as you are dressed, you will 
say your prayer in the " Journ6e du Chre- 
tien," or even a shorter one, if you know 
it ; but keep to the one which you adopt. 



156 Madame de la Rochefoticatild. 

'' 4th. You will read a chapter in the 
' Imitation/ after which you will meditate 
for a quarter of an hour ; the two first 
books will suit you best for the present. 

" 5th. You will hear mass every day. 

*' 6th. You will devote from an hour to 
an hour and a half to your breakfast, as well 
as to the duty you owe your grandparents. 

"7th. You will employ two hours in the 
morning, either in reading history, travels, 
or the like, or with masters in accomplish- 
ments ; if you wish to profit by your read- 
ings, you will make extracts. 

" 8th. You will reser\'e a half hour for re- 
ligious reading, and before beginning it,you 
wall ask God for grace to get benefit from it. 

" 9th. You will make your toilet before 
dinner, striving to spend no more time over 
it than is necessary. You might make use 
of these moments to learn some well-se- 
lected bits of poetry ; you would culti- 
vate your memory, you would ornament 
your mind and prevent being too much 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 157 

taken up with fashion, so dangerous a 
thing for the young. 

" loth. I should Hke you to take up the 
habit of reflecting, five minutes only, before 
dinner, upon the way in which you have 
spent your morning and observed your rule. 

''nth. During the meal, while being as 
pleasant as possible out of consideration 
for your relatives, try to raise your heart to 
God from time to time. It would be well 
that the meal should not go over without 
some little practice of self-denial. For 
the present, confine yourself to repressing 
your too numerous fancies. Set about it 
gradually as yet, but you will find your 
health even will be the better for it. 

" 1 2th. After dinner, stay with your rela- 
tions for two hours ; take up some needle- 
work at this time, and try to make it agree- 
able to others by the pleasantness of your 
society. ' 

"13th. You will then go to your room 
for two hours, or two hours and a half, 



158 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

during which you will say your beads some 
twenty times, and one penitential psalm, so 
that the seven psalms and the long rosary 
will be told in the week ; the rest of the 
time will be given to reading, writing, or 
lessons in music or painting. 

" 14th. The end of the evening will be 
devoted to your friends, to society, accord- 
ing to the tastes or the wish of your hus- 
band. 

" 15th. You will keep the same rules for 
supper as for dinner. You will say your 
prayers in the evening, make your exami- 
nation, and after asking God to forgive the 
faults of the day, and thanking Him for the 
blessings received, you will try . to go to 
sleep with good thoughts of some kind. 

" 1 6th. Your confessor alone can regu- 
late the number of your communions ; I 
should be glad, however, if you would 
make a resolution never to be kept away 
from the holy table, by your own fault, 
for more than a month, and if you wish to 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 159 

make confession easier, you will go to the 
confessional every fortnight. 

'' For three days before communion you 
will read daily a chapter of the ' Imitation/ 
the fourth book. You will keep a more 
careful watch over yourself ; you will dis- 
charge your duties with more exactness, 
knowing that it is chiefly the disposition of 
the heart that God asks of us. 

*' You will banish everything (except for 
a legitimate reason, the wish of your hus- 
band, for instance) that might distract you. 

"You will continue the reading from the 
' Imitation * for three days after, and will 
watch yourself with the same care, in giv- 
ing thanks. 

*' It would be good to let some particular 
works of charity precede your approach to 
the sacraments. 

" This rule, good for the time being, in 
that it is compatible with all your duties, 
might not suit you at another time ; it 
could then be modified. It is quite enough, 



i6o Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

my dear child, that you promise not to 
change it without advice, but you would 
do well to accept, to propose, even, any 
change which seems reasonable to you, in 
view of a difference of circumstances. I 
am going to try, now, to write down for 
you some general rules, which, while fix- 
ing your mind on certain points, will make 
you avoid all anxiety. 

" FIRST GENERAL RULE. 

*' As the first of all rules, the only one to 
which salvation is promised, is the doing 
one's duty, it is understood that the dis- 
tribution of your time will always be sub- 
ject to the wish, desire, and pleasure of 
your husband. Any time that his presence 
may interrupt one of your exercises, you 
will never look disturbed. You will leave 
off your prayers promptly, even when you 
may be finding them most comforting. 
At all times you will be animated by the 
desire of representing virtue to him as at- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. i6i 

tractive, and to that end you will try to re- 
form the little defects of character that are 
still in you, and which would hinder this. 
When your exercises shall have been inter- 
rupted by your husband, or by something 
independent of your will, you will have no 
uneasiness about it, and, to avoid all confu- 
sion, you will take up your regular pursuits 
according to the time prescribed, at the 
moment when you are free again. You will 
take care, however to put the few prayers 
directed, and the religious reading, at the 
hour when you are used to be least inter- 
rupted. 

" SECOND GENERAL RULE. 

"To make your decision about anything 
that you may have to do, and which may 
not be comprised in this rule, you will ask 
if the action or the thing that you are 
going to undertake can be offered to God. 
II 






162 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

RULES FOR ALMS-GIVING. 

" Every time that you receive your allow- 
ance you will take out the portion of the 
poor. You might fix it at a tenth of what 
you have at your disposal. I take it for 
granted that you would never have debts, 
for then you could n*t give away, which 
would be the contradiction of justice. 

" You will try to distribute your alms with 
discrimination, giving the preference to the 
old, the infirm, and those who are particu- 
larly consecrated to God. 

" If you could sometimes, without omit- 
ting your duties, and always consulting 
the rules of prudence, if you could yourself 
see the sufferers, get them some comforts 
through your interest, cause them to bless 
religion and the God of charity, who has 
made use of you to help them, you would 
derive a very sweet satisfaction, and would 
only have to guard against following a per- 
haps too human inclination. I have no 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 163 

doubt that you would thus sometimes add 
to the sum set apart, what you had appro- 
priated to a new fashion, or a superfluous 
article of dress, and this sacrifice would 
not be without its importance. 

''RULES FOR YOUR READING. 

"This subject is of interest to all ages, 
but especially to youth, when all impres- 
sions being more lively, a more or less 
judicious choice might have fatal results. 
I have no intention of speaking to you of 
books, either against religion or morals, or 
even of romances. Every Christian has 
renounced these at his baptism, and the 
principles that you now have satisfy me 
that you would have a horror of them ; 
but that is not enough ; resolve never to 
read religious books without advice. A 
book is good, useful at one time, which 
might be dangerous at another ; and he to 
whom God has trusted the care of your 
soul, has grace given him to decide for you. 



164 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

"As to your books of instruction, or 
pleasure, it is sufficient that you determine 
not to choose them for yourself, and to con- 
sult only virtuous and wise persons." 

Mademoiselle Ernestine is become Mad- 
ame la Marquise de Rastignac ; the prudent 
mother had no wish to commit the future 
of her daughter to a brilliant but frivolous 
man, without principle, such as there were 
so many of at that time ; but she made 
choice of an upright man, serious, strongly 
attached to his duty, and whose relig- 
ious feeling promised well for him. 

Now, notwithstanding the recent and 
dreadful calamities, notwithstanding the 
atrocities which Paris has just witnessed, 
her society begins to whirl with festivities. 
One would say, in seeing the eagerness of 
this great world, still dyed with the blood of 
its martyrs, that it would fain make up for 
its sacrifices by dizzying itself in the vor- 
tex of pleasures. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 165 

The seventeen years old marchioness is 
one of the most invited, and most feted ; her 
literary advantages, her lively and spark- 
ling wit, her sportive disposition, attract ad- 
miration and praises which hide a twofold 
snare. At this age intoxication is easy ; 
one yields himself willingly to the happi- 
ness of feeling himself loved, or sought, 
.... the good and confiding nature of the 
young woman has no suspicion of the ma- 
lignity of a world as envious as flattering, 
but her honest conscience hears the re- 
proach within, *' God is not satisfied — 
He asks something different." A filial out- 
pouring consoles this soul made for virtue ; 
she confides to her mother what many a 
one will not own to himself. She is en- 
couraged to find a stay as tender as it is 
strong, and quite happy to take refuge in 
holiness and love at the same time. 

Under the impression of a sweet joy, 
and of a real alarm, the mother responds 
by new counsels, to which she adds the 
most urgent solicitation. 



1 66 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

"MONTMIRAIL, December 28, 1799. 

" The last talks with you filled me with 
comfort, my dear Ernestine ; it is true, the 
more satisfaction I had in them, the more 
is your departure made painful to me. 
Thus, I like to tell you that they left a 
tender impression with me, in which my 
soul loves to rest. The light which God 
in His mercy gives you about yourself, — 
an inestimable favour, which often one does 
not possess until he is much older, — the 
fulness of your confidence, and more than 
that, the teachableness of your mind ; this 
is what fills me with hope. Yes, I rejoice, 
my dear child, but a mother's heart passes 
very quickly from hope to fear, and I feel 
the need to speak for a few moments with 
you of the different reasons which make 
me go from the one to the other. May 
heaven make my advice useful to you. 
May my tenderness justify in your eyes the 
alarm which is perhaps premature, but, I 
believe, well founded. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 167 

" You complain of a weakness in your 
character which gives you the appearance 
of agreeing with the person who is talking 
with you, and which prevents your resisting 
everything that is not absolutely bad in 
itself ; you feel in yourself the desire to 
please, a coquetry of mind which makes 
you seek by preference those whom you 
consider superior, because their appro- 
bation is more flattering to you. You 
are disposed towards general benevolence, 
which might well be a virtue, and pro- 
ceed from the goodness of your heart, but 
that it has also for motive this immod- 
erate desire that you have for approbation. 
The outcome is, that regard for human 
opinion has daily an increased empire over 
you, and the weakness by which you allow 
yourself to be misled prevents you from 
freeing yourself from it. Your delicate 
conscience warns you about the least 
things, but the fear of being blamed and 
thought a poor-spirited person renders you 



1 68 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

deaf to its voice. This combat grows pain- 
ful to you, and then you seek to persuade 
yourself that the question is not of the 
first necessity ; you say to yourself, that in 
religion one may put aside what is only 
advised, in order to make a point only of 
what is binding ; that in youth there would 
be inconveniences in adopting a line of 
conduct which one could not be sure of 
following. You put off for a more ad- 
vanced age practices of which you feel the 
necessity, but which a few light words 
cause you^to neglect. You set apart God's 
part; you limit it, and you let the world 
take its portion and increase it in propor- 
tion as the other diminishes. This division, 
however, does not procure you the tran- 
quillity which you seek, for the mercy of 
your God pursues you ; you cannot enter 
into yourself without blushing for your 
weakness, without being humiliated even 
(you have confessed as much yourself), for 
the claim that this weakness has estab- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 169 

lished upon you, and without being fright- 
ened at the abyss into which it may plunge 

you ' But I do no harm/ do you 

say ? Is it not a wrong, then, to refuse to 
God what one feels that He asks ; to cheat 
one's self of the graces that attach to 
fidelity ; to expose himself to lose those 
which he has, by resistance ; and lastly, 
supposing that you do no evil, you do not 
all the good which you ought, and to which 
you are destined. The more God gives 
you a horror for vice, and inclination for 
virtue, the more He urges its practice in 
your soul ; the greater are your pledges to 
Him, the more guilty you are if you cease 
to fulfil them. Do you think, dear Ernes- 
tine, that this energy, this highness of sen- 
timent, this strength amid so great weak- 
ness which would make you capable of great 
sacrifices, this gentleness, this evenness of 
temper, this kindness, this gratitude, which 
you express in such a touching way, do you 
think that they should be limited to be mere 



1 70 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

moral qualities, and that He who has put in 
your heart the precious germ of so many 
virtues, has not a right to exact that they 
shall be exercised for Him, and can you be 
at peace so long as you prevent their use 
and prevent them from rising to the source 
from whence they proceed ? But let not 
your sensibility be terrified, for these same 
qualities will be only the more endearing 
and lovable when they shall have been so 
directed. 

" In the picture that I have just drawn, 
my child, it seems to me that you cannot 
fail to recognize yourself ; for it is the 
faithful portraiture of all that the frank- 
ness of your confidence has revealed to me, 
and it is on this confession that I base my 
hopes ; when an evil is acknowledged, it is 
very near being cured. There needs, *then, 
only a strong, persevering will to bring 
about the remedy, and you will ask this of 
Him whom you pray so earnestly not to 
abandon you. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 171 

" I must tell you, joyfully, that in writ- 
ing I feel all my fears vanish ; my mission 
to you is full of consolation. If I had to 
open your eyes to yourself, to combat your 
illusions, I could be uneasy, because of the 
feebleness of my parts ; but here the mercy 
of God has done all. I speak to a soul 
which knows its own misery, which be- 
wails the gulf towards which that misery 
is drawing it, whilst a powerful hand holds 
it back, to which, doubtless, it will not fail 
to surrender itself. If I had to undeceive 
you about the enchanting fascination of all 
earthly things, your great youth and the 
perils to which you are exposed might 
alarm me ; but happy, happy mother, I have 
only to congratulate myself ; scarcely have 
you tasted these delights when you feel 
their hoUowness and insufficiency. Your 
heart finds nothing here that can satisfy 
it. You examine men, — you have already 
passed judgment upon them; you say that 
they are nearly all foolish, and that the 



172 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

number of the wise is very small ; how is 
it to be thought, then, that you could sac- 
rifice your conscience, your peace of mind, 
your eternal happiness, to acquire the es- 
teem of people whom you scorn, and of 
a world whose corruption horrifies you ? 
And why, setting aside the powerful rea- 
sons which I doubt not will determine you, 
should you not prefer the approval of that 
small number, which assuredly you admit 
to have chosen the better part, since you 
style them wise ? Besides, would it not be 
easy to prove to you that they who have 
done most to merit a vain esteem have 
never won it ? 

" The world, inconsistent in its conduct, is 
not always so in its judgments, and do you 
know who are the people towards whom its 
railleries and sarcasms are most surely di- 
rected ? It is those weak characters, those 
narrow minds which, belonging neither 
to God nor the world, go on floating in 
their uncertainty, not doing the good they 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 173 

love, nor avoiding the evil that they fear. 
They lay themselves open to ridicule by 
their inconsistencies, and reap, as the fruit 
of their pains, only the general scorn due to 
the cowardice of their behaviour. There- 
fore, humanly speaking, what is necessary 
to get men's esteem ? To be in harmony 
with one's self, to be virtuous, and believe 
that this worldling who vents his mahgnity 
in mocking, if he finds you beyond attack, 
does homage in his soul to the principles 
against which he inveighs only because 
they are his condemnation. Your personal 
interest, then, is found to be at one with 
religion ; it teaches you to despise men's 
judgments, while you see that this is the 
surest way to get their esteem. Religion 
asks no more, but she is not content with 
so stingy a reward. What encouragements 
does she not offer ! What hopes ! What 
arguments of every kind ! Ah, my child, 
lift yourself for a moment above all that is 
created ; behold the heavenly treasures, 



1 74 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

and then, if it be possible, be ambitious for 
the earthly ! See the crown which awaits 
you, which is promised to your courage, 
to your perseverance, and then estimate 
the frivolities, the toys with which men 
amuse themselves here b|k)w. Fill yourself 
with love of your God, and you will quickly 
know how to value the esteem and the 
friendship of men. Go into your own heart, 
and you will find Him there. He calls you, 
He entreats you. He awaits you, and gives 
to you a feeling of unchangeable peace 
whenever you have recourse to Him, and 
submit yourself to his divine will. You 
will try in vain to find peace elsewhere. 
" What, then, holds you back, my dear 
Ernestine } Your mind is convinced, yea, 
more, it is enlightened ; your heart is 
touched ; you blush for your weakness ; 
should you still yield to it } What have 
you to put in the balance t The jests of 
those who will not have the strength to 
imitate you, .... the railing of a few god- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 175 

less ones, .... no, such puerile fear will 
not make you hesitate henceforward ; you 
will not set yourself up as a preacher ; this 
role has not devolved upon you, and in 
sooth you would not have acquired this 
right ; but a firm behaviour and constant, 
in harmony with your principles, this will 
be your mission ; you will join with it, ac- 
cording to your possibility, all the attrac- 
tion that gayety, amiability, and simplicity 
can offer, to make it more efficacious. The 
gentle, quiet, and reserved manner in which 
you will receive all the bad jokes launched 
against you will soon take away all desire 
to make them. You will give no handle 
against you, because all will be regulated 
and consistent. This conduct, sustained 
for two or three years only, will ^ain for 
you complete liberty ; the world will weary 
of persecuting you. Certain of being able 
to gain nothing, it will exercise its mis- 
chievousness upon others, whom your ex- 
ample will, perhaps, help to sustain. You 



1 76 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

will be greatly astonished, at the end of a 
few years of oblivion, to see those same 
persons who may have seemed to treat 
you as a mean-spirited and narrow per- 
son, seek you out, consult you in puzzling 
situations, prop themselves by the reputa- 
tion you have acquired, and feel honoured 
by any interest which you may take in 

them But, my child, why fall back 

upon human motives, which I am quite 
willing should encourage and sustain you 
for the moment, but which are not made 
for a soul like yours. If you needed simi- 
lar incentives, could I forget that your" atti- 
tude towards me, your confidence, your 
sentiments, give me the most powerful that 
I could offer you, and that to speak to you 
of my happiness, my satisfaction, would be 
to decide you ? But, far be it from me to stop 
you there ; your heart, moreover, speaks 

to you, mine feels it only too deeply 

No, my child, we will both have purer and 
more powerful motives, and the mother of 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 177 

Ernestine will show herself worthy of her 
confidence, by teaching her to know the 
only real good, the only interest for which 
one should sacrifice everything. Run the 
race that is open to you, but never lose 
from sight the eternity which ends it ; let 
all your actions which tend toward this 
goal be hallowed and animated by this 
hope. Ah, my child, there is the happi- 
ness which my heart solicits for you, that 
for which I would lay down my life, my re- 
pose ; it is there that I desire to possess 
you, and to find you again, no more to leave 
you." 

This language was understood by the 
lovely young woman, so truly worthy of her 
mother, in spite of the sensible difference 
of their characters. There was the same 
elevation and generosity of sentiment. The 
Lord had placed them side by side ; one 
to call out abundantly the treasures of wis- 
dom contained in the maternal heart ; the 
other to bring a counterpoise to all the 



12 



1 78 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

seductions of mind and heart, for, notwith- 
standing a precocious maturity, notwith- 
standing the Hght of faith which illumi- 
nates certain souls at a tender age, and 
makes them say with the wise man, even 
before having made the experiment, "Van- 
ity of vanities, all is vanity, except to love 
God and to serve Him ; " it is rare that 
youth is exempt from sweet illusions, and 
gracious and very natural hopes which may 
perfectly agree with the purest longings 
and the holiest affections. 

Soon a new happiness and new duties 
came to fill this new existence, where life 
seemed to run over. 

Madame de Rastignac received her little 
Zenaide with transports of love, and she re- 
solved to bring her up, as she had been 
herself brought up by the most watchful 
and devoted of mothers. To complete her 
joy, she heard at the same time, that her 
father was hastening towards France. For, 
in fact. Monsieur de Doudeauville, impa- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 179 

tient to see his family, had set forth on the 
first news of the fall of the Directory (i8th 
Brumaire, '99), without waiting for the de- 
cree of armistice expected from the first 
consul by all the emigrants ; but the diffi- 
culties of the journey this time were en- 
countered in the foreign countries, which, 
defeated by Bonaparte, now distrusted all 
the French. By the aid of his title of 
Spanish grandee, under the name of Am- 
brosio, born a quarter of an hour's distance 
from Madrid (the Castle of Madrid in the 
Bois de Bologne being only half a league 
from Paris), the Duke of Doudeauville, 
without teUing falsehoods, traversed Aus- 
tria and Italy as a Spaniard. He got as 
far as Lyons, from whence he intended to 
proceed the next day, when a letter from 
his wife stopped him : being anxious, she 
begs him to wait for regular papers before 
finishing his journey. He submits, not 
without a struggle, for when one has nearly 
reached a long desired goal, minutes be- 



1 80 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

come hours. After eight days of unbea* 
able waiting, receiving nothing, he decides 
to take up his journey, and, with the per- 
versity one often sees in the affairs of this 
poor world, hardly has he left Lyons when 
the good duchess reaches it ; to make the 
greatest speed, she has travelled night and 
day. Arrived at the hotel, she eagerly 
asks for Monsieur Ambrosio. 
" Madame will surely breakfast." 
" Dear me, no ; I only want Monsieur 
Ambrosio ! " Seeing the surprise of the 
landlady, Madame de Doudeauville adds in- 
stantly, " this gentleman is my husband." 
To satisfy her impatience, they turn over 
the leaves of the strangers' book, and tell 
her that after staying for ten days in Ly- 
ons, Monsieur Ambrosio has just left 

Much annoyed, and not understanding this 
conduct, which a lost letter explained, the 
noble traveller exclaims : " How strange it 
is, ... . and what could he do here t " 
The landlady, misunderstanding the feel- 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 1 8 1 

ing which agitates her, thinks it her duty to 
say : '* Be reassured, madam, he led a per- 
fectly correct life here. He went to walk 
a great deal, but alone with his little dog.'' 
In spite of her disappointment, Madame de 
Doudeauville cannot help laughing, and an- 
swers that she is not uneasy on that score. 
Then she asks for post-horses, and hastens 
her departure. 

The meeting takes place at Macon. Ig- 
noring her fatigue and poor health, in 
order not to delay the happiness of them 
all, the happy duchess wishes to continue 
her journey : very soon the whole family 
is reunited. 

Holy Scripture says of the virtuous 
woman : " The heart of her husband doth 
safely trust in her, so that he shall have no 
need of spoil. She considereth a field and 
buyeth it. Her children rise up and call 
her blessed ; her husband also, and he 
praises her." The application is easy ; not 
only had Madame de Doudeauville pre- 



i82 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

served by her courage all her property, 
but, says the duke, " She had beautified it 
by her cares, and improved it by a wise 
administration. 

**The first time that she conducted me 
to one of our estates, she presented it to 
me like a conquest, with a sweet and mod- 
est pride, which became her well I, who 
had for long despaired of seeing myself in 
these moumed-f or places ; I whose am- 
bition in my days of exile had been to be 
able to retain my gardener's house thus, I 
thought I dreamed in finding myself rein- 
stated as master. 

"The be:- : ::: : : ::' " ^ 
the preserve: ::: :: : s jr: . 
had paid ne I'.'.t ::r^::i:r i::c:v : 

appointing as steward my valet de chambr^ 
whom I had sent back to France eight 
years before. 

"This excellent man, who had been 
with me from my tenderest childhood, em- 
braced me with transport, while he wept 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 183 

with emotion. His tears called forth my 
own. 

" This was only the prelude to what I 
was to experience in Paris, on finding again 
my mother, my children, some relatives, 
and devoted friends. It was a joy, a whirl, 
an intoxication ! " 

Alas ! a few pages farther on we read : 
"The happiness which I tasted with my 
own dear ones, was not to be of long 
duration." 



CHAPTER VI. 

DEATH OF MADAME DE RASTIGNAC. 

Up to this time, as we have seen, suf- 
fering has not been lacking to the pre- 
cious existence whose course we love to 
follow ; as the charming young child, the 
gracious young woman, the brilliant court 
lady — in whatever situation we consider 
her, we see always those shades of earth, 
which an ignorant hand would wish to ban- 
ish, but without which we have beneath our 
eyes only the flat representation of fleet- 
ing enjoyment. 

For the Duchess of Doudeauville, these 
shadows, these trials, were always growing 
heavier ; during the torture of the Rev- 
olution, she trembled for the beings most 
dear to her ; she felt every fear, every ap- 
prehension ; only the Lord was almost con- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 185 

tented that she should foresee and accept 
the greatest sacrifices. A visible angel to 
all her own, she was marvellously guarded 
and defended in her turn by a celestial 
protector. But at last the sword must 
pierce through her soul, and like the Virgin 
of Sorrows, towards whom she feels drawn, 
she finds her appointed place at the foot 
of the cross ; we shall see her there, brave 
and generous, bow to the hand of God. 
She has braved the scaffold, but she is to 
have her martyrdom still, one which all 
mothers will understand. 

In the very midst of festivities, and in 
the intoxication of the tenderest joys, Ma- 
dame de Rastignac suddenly feels a serious 
faiUng of health ; a persistent cough, ac- 
companied by fever, a general condition of 
weakness, sad symptoms of a grave disease, 
— these cause alarm in a family whose de- 
light she is ; for, if she gave to the world 
her gayety and the graces of her mind, she 
reserved her whole heart for her own people. 



1 86 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Relying on the good air of Montmirail as 
the best remedy, her mother takes her there 
in the course of July, 1802 ; but instead of 
being checked, the malady becomes more 
evident, and, towards the end of August, 
they hasten back to Paris, where they can 
find all the resources of art. Madame de 
Doudeauville then installs herself in her 
daughter's room ; for nearly three months 
she passes her days there, and often her 
nights too, hanging upon the beating of her 
heart, watching in her face the progress of 
an illness of whose gravity she has a pre- 
sentiment, while with all her might she 
clings to the faintest ray of hope. But 
the Lord does not permit a long truce to 
those whom He has chosen to glorify Him 
more especially. To the sacrifices which 
each day exacts, He adds harder trials ; 
He makes them drink, at times, of the deep 
waters of tribulation ; and that which is an 
alarm to the erring or slumbering soul is 
a recompense to the faithful soul, become 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 187 

the spouse, the friend ; to whom the Lord 
says, as once to his favoured disciples : 
" Can ye drink of my cup ? " 

Let us follow the mother and daughter 
in this last struggle, where they rival each 
other in faith, self-abnegation, and generos- 
ity. A letter of Monsieur TAbbe Legris- 
Duval has left us a document upon these 
last hours, precious for its touching edifi- 
cation. Profoundly anxious, but always 
mistress of herself, Madame de Doudeau- 
ville, so soon as she perceives the danger, 
desires that the minister of the Lord should 
come to aid, sustain, console, and if it 
needs must be, to prepare for her depar- 
ture the child of her love. What she pro- 
poses is very simple ; the priest has always 
had his place at the fireside ; he is a fam- 
ily friend, and as such he comes to talk 
with the invalid, to speak to her of the 
many graces attached to suffering, of the 
merits which she may acquire. These 
strengthening words are welcomed by a 



1 88 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

soul accustomed from its infancy to read in 
the great book of the Divine Will. 

" In loving my mother," says Madame de 
Rastignac, " I learned to love virtue. I 
always thought it the voice of God that I 
heard when she spoke, and in obeying her, 
I felt it to be His will that I did." 

The beginnings of the disease were 
marked by the terror due to vague and sad 
presentiments ; then she invoked God, and 
afterwards, turning towards her mother, she 
said to her : *^ Stay with me ; near you I 
have never been afraid of anything." And 
she slept tranquilly in this safe-keeping. 

The hope of entire and quick recovery 
came quickly to this ardent nature prone 
to confidence, then the fears returned. She 
hid them carefully from her mother, her 
father, her husband ; but at times she al- 
lowed others to see her forebodings. Feel- 
ing herself more ill, she said one day : — 

" I am resigned to all God may will, but 
I confess that it would cost me much to 
give up life." 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 89 

"That is natural," said some one, "at 
twenty-one years, with all the advantages 
that insure happiness." 

" No," she said, laughing, " these are no 
ties ; you don't understand me." 

" But you are a wife and a mother ! " 

" Ah, I feel that more keenly than ever ! 
And I am a daughter." These last words, 
pronounced in an accent of tenderness and 
grief, were heart-rending. 

She who in infancy had found her hap- 
piness in relieving the poor, whose greatest 
pleasure had been to give, provided that 
her charities were kept secret, she who had 
always been kind and devoted to her pa- 
rents, friends, and servants, forgot herself 
up to the last moment, in busying herself 
with thought for others. Six weeks before 
her death, a prey to the sharpest sufferings, 
she had set her mind upon writing to her 
husband who was kept away from her in 
spite of himself. She feared that the sight 
of a strange handwriting might cause him 
uneasiness. 



IQO Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Her condition now forbidding her to 
keep long any one position or to make any 
movement without acute pain, the desire 
of practising patience, and the fear of af- 
flicting those about her, arrested every com- 
plaint, stifled every sigh, and when, sur- 
prised by the violence of the suffering, she 
let a groan escape her, she would temper 
the impression thus made by- a smile, a re- 
assuring word. Each one received tokens 
of her goodness ; her servants rendered 
her no service that she did n't show her 
satisfaction. To distract her father from 
his alarm, she would cast about her for any- 
thing that might interest him. As soon 
as her husband returned, they had good 
talks together. They spoke of the future, 
and especially of a plan made for mutual 
sanctification. 

Every day the invalid begged her mother 
to read a chapter from the Gospel to her, on 
which she made comments ; and after the 
reading she would kiss the holy book re- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 191 

spectfully. *' At what are you astonished," 
she said to those who saw her, " is it not 
the word of God ? " 

On the 30th of October, thinking her 
not ill enough to receive the Holy Viati- 
cum, Monsieur Levis brought her the com- 
munion at midnight. The next day, the 
joy and sensible improvement of the sick 
woman attested her happiness. 

"-How good the Lord is,'' she said, "can 
one ever love Him enough } How He re- 
pays us for our sacrifices ! Could I refuse 
Him one ? . . . . We make so many for 
the world ! Let Him dispose of me as He 
will, I am sure that it will always be for 
my good." 

She even came to cherish her sufferings. 
"I should be sorry to have less pain," she 
often said ; " Jesus Christ bore much greater 
suffering." She made it a rule to accept 
what was offered to her, in spite of any re- 
pugnance, in memory of the vinegar and 
myrrh given to her Saviour, 



192 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

In the early days of November a new 
consultation pronounced the disease in- 
curable. Her father was present. The 
mother, at the daughter s side, awaited the 
answer, in mortal apprehension ; they took 
care not to bring it to her. But the silence 
revealed everything. Without asking any 
questions, as soon as the doctors are gone, 
she hastens to the foot of the altar, her 
ordinary refuge ; here she meets her hus- 
band, and reads in his tear-stained eyes 
the terrible decree, offers with him her sac- 
rifice, calls the Virgin of Sorrows to her 
aid, and returns to her daughter with a 
face of perfect calmness. In respect to her 
silence, the invalid, who knows that her 
fate has been decided, asks no question, 
and when they try to sound her thoughts, 
she is content to answer, " I am in the 
hands of Providence, as it were in my 
mother's arms." 

However, in spite of the forebodings in- 
tensified at intervals, Madame de Rastig- 



m 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 193 

nac, as is often the case in this disease, 
hoped for a cure. God allows these alter- 
nations to give the dying person the merit 
of the sacrifice, and yet not to have him , 
always facing a weight too crushing for his 
weakness. Being warned by her confessor. 
Monsieur Levis, she seemed astonished to 
be so near her end, but, as always, her 
thought was for her mother. She feared 
that this presage of the last sacraments 
might give her a mortal blow ; and, lest 
another should wound this heart whose 
tenderness she knew, she would give to no 
one the charge of preparing her. 

This woman of twenty, before whom the 
tomb is opening, and who can hardly speak, 
is about then to encourage her mother to 
see her die. Calling her to her bedside, 
as soon as the confessor is gone, she says 
to her, '* Monsieur Levis has proposed to 
me to receive the sacraments in a day or 
two ; do you not think it would be for my 
13 



1 94 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

edification ? Extreme Unction never does 
harm." 

With her soul torn within her, but calm 
.and tranquil in appearance, the mother 
says in answer everything that rehgion and 
tenderness can inspire at such a moment. 
The sick w^oman being reassured, then al- 
lows her heart to speak freely : " I did not 
think myself so ill ; the veil has just been 
torn away ; I must die ; this news having 
moved me, I had need of you to set myself 
right." 

Let us hear the answer, worthy of the 
mother of the Maccabees : " My daughter, 
if God sees in your heart the submission 
of Isaac, and in mine the faith of Abra- 
ham, perhaps He will turn aside the sword ! 
.... But let us call to our mind Jesus 
Christ, His obedience. His self-devotion." 

" O my mother ; my only friend, you 
know why I should regret life ; . . . . but 
fear nothing, your daughter will be worthy 
of you." 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 195 

She was indeed so, for a little after she 
added in a steady voice : " Before you go 
out of the room, the sacrifice must be made 
with the perfection that God demands. 
.... Mother, my sacrifice is accom- 
plished Let us bless God, calm- 
ness is restored. But if any trace of emo- 
tion be visible, they might be afflicted. 
Let us read a chapter in the ' Imitation.' " 
They opened at hazard, and fell upon this 
chapter : " On the royal road of the holy 
cross.'* The mother emphasizes these 
words, " In the cross is the strength of 
soul ; in the cross, the joy of the mind, the 
consummation of virtue, the perfection of 
holiness. If you bear the cross with a good 
heart, it will carry you on and conduct you 
to the longed-for goal, where you will cease 
to suffer." 

"Take up your cross, then, and follow 
Jesus, and you will attain to eternal life." 

The invalid, encouraged, enraptured, 
cries with transport : " What a treasure is 



196 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

the cross ! .... It is very true, that death 
is a gain, and suffering an actual good." 

Remembering, then, some trifling details 
of which she had spoken to her mother, 
she imparts them to her, and adds : " I 
thank God in dying, that I have never had 
a single thought which was unknown to 
you." 

Leaving her daughter peaceful and full 
of confidence, the poor mother, broken by 
the effort which she had just made, re- 
tires for a moment. Pale, with choking 
breath, she was heard to say, from time to 
time, without shedding a tear : *' I hope no 
longer ; my daughter is going to die." 

Aware of her danger, the sick woman 
wished to know the exact degree. On the 
next day she asked to speak alone with the 
physician. The conversation was a kind 
of interrogatory, and in questioning the 
doctor most eagerly, she watched his eyes, 
his expression, his smallest movement. 
The answer was a sentence which his hu- 



p 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 197 

manity wished in vain to mitigate. She 
heard it, without being troubled, and with- 
out moving, , . . . while the physician, his 
heart heavy, his mind struck by so great 
youth, trouble, and courage united, declared 
that he could not recover from the impres- 
sion during the entire day. 

The moments grew precious ; the sick 
woman spoke to the Abbe Legris-Duval, on 
that very day, of the blessedness of re- 
ceiving the sacraments. 

" It will be to-morrow," she added. 

" To-morrow } Your mother, your hus- 
band know about it ; they would surely 
wish that this sad duty were discharged as 
soon as possible. The waiting will be cruel 
to these loving hearts." 

^' You are right ; I do not wish to make 
them suffer ; I shall cost them sorrow 
enough. It shall be this evening. I wish 
to spare the feelings of my relatives this 
scene, but I have begged my mother to be 
here ; it would be too hard for her to keep 



198 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

away. Besides, I need her presence ; she 
is my good angel ; she is my hfe ; I could 
indeed believe I have never done anything 
well without her ; I owe to her cares the 
prolonging of my days, and to her virtues 
my salvation." 

At the news of the ceremony which was 
to take place, the whole household seemed 
to have been struck by a sentence of death. 
The old servants wept as if they were going 
to lose one of their own children ; conster- 
nation is spread abroad ; but by the sick- 
bed peace reigns. Fear and anxiety seem 
banished from this sanctuary, where the 
constancy of the mother and the resigna- 
tion of the daughter have triumphed. How 
grand they are, both of them, in these last 
moments. The mother, on her knees, con- 
trols her tears, and allows only accents of 
faith to escape from her heart, uniting her 
prayers with those of the church ; offer- 
ing the hands of the daughter herself for 
the Extreme Unction. She, peaceful and 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 1 99 

perfectly collected, responds to the prayers 
with a steady voice. 

"This is the body of your Saviour," says 
the priest to her ; " do you believe this ? " 

" Ah ! how I believe it ! " she cries ; and 
these words were emphasized with such 
fervour of love, that those who heard wept 
in repeating them. 

After the ceremony the fever abated, the 
rest of the day was calm, her powers seemed 
to take on more life, but the next day the 
condition became so alarming, that more 
than once they thought the last moment 
had come. With her eyes fixed upon the 
crucifix, the sick woman repeated lovingly : 
" I unite my sufferings to Thine, my Sav- 
iour. Thy merits are infinite ; they will 
supply my insufficiency." 

Towards evening she asked for the Abbe 
Legris-Duval. " Be my interpreter to my 
mother when I shall be no more," she said 
to him. *' Conjure her to live after I am 
gone, in spite of her sorrow ; express to 
her this, my last wish." 



2 CO Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

*^You feel very ill, then?" 

'' Yes, very ill." 

'' The poor mother ! . . . . But you will 
pray God to comfort her ? " 

"Oh, yes ; but soothe you her grief ; per- 
suade her to take care of herself." 

'' Your mother has ties and duties left 
which are dear to her ; she will attend to 
her health, you may be sure ; but at all 
events, if we must ask it of her, who can do 
it better than you ? Speak to her yourself ; 
we shall be sure of being heard, if we recall 
to her what her dying daughter has said." 

" This ver}^ evening, I will get her prom- 
ise to live and act as mother towards my 
little girl. I hope that she will find Er- 
nestine again in Zenaide. Monsieur de 
Rastignac has already begged her to adopt 
the child, and she has consented. How 
happy is my daughter ; she will be brought 
up by my mother." 

There was more conversation ; she added 
in conclusion : " What will you do for me 
when I am dead } " 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 201 

" I shall mourn for you, as all will do who 
know you, and I shall pray God for you." 

" And I ? — I shall be busy for you all 
in heaven." 

" You are sure of going there, then } " 

" I have that confidence. I abandon my- 
self entirely to God, and I am without so- 
licitude." 

A sinking condition followed. Madame 
de Doudeauville came in haste, and being 
alone with her mother, the sufferer, with a 
touching confidence, implores her to keep 
up for the sake of all her dear ones. She 
bequeaths to her her dear Zenaide. She 
then begs that they will ask the Abbe Le- 
gris-Duval to come back again, as she de- 
sires to dictate her last wishes to him. 

" Never," says he, " had I seen her more 
herself, or more lovely, and yet she was in 
a kind of agony. Cold sweats, continual 
sinkings, hiccoughings, announced the su- 
preme moment." She asked him to take 
her writing-desk, and added : — 



202 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

" I wish to make my will, for, I am of 
age ; I am twenty-one years old." 

" A will, madame ? I am not a notary ; 
I do not know the proper form." 

"It is only some provision for my pa- 
rents, and for Monsieur de Rastignac ; I 
have never had anything to do but to make 
my desires known to them ; besides, I will 
sign, .... if I can, for I am very weak. 
I would like to say that I leave the world 
with resignation, but grieving deeply for 
my family, — arrange all that." 

The dying woman, recalling then all the 
memories, all the affections of her life, 
expressed herself with so much ardour, 
that her secretary could hardly follow her. 
" How many tears I shall cause my mother ! 
And what a sacrifice to leave her ! She has 
always made me so happy! People have 
said that my education was too severe. 

How little they knew my mother If 

I had to complain, it would be of too much 
happiness ; perhaps I was too much accus- 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 203 

:omed to fulfil my duties, through senti- 
ment for her. She has known how to make 
everything agreeable to me, through my 
one idea of pleasing her. It is the truth ; 

you have witnessed this yourself 

Promise me to repeat to her often, that she 
made the happiness of her daughter, and if 
I have caused her pain, implore her to par- 
don me." 

Afterwards she spoke of her father ; 
she compassionated his misfortunes : " So 
young to have been banished from his peo- 
ple for ten years, and to come back to his 
family only to see his daughter die before 
his eyes ! It will make him very unhappy ! 
My brother Sosthenes will take my place 
to him ; he will do better than I. Tell him 
that I counted on his good heart, and that 
this idea comforted me in dying. Tell 
Monsieur de Rastignac that I wished to 
live to make him happy." Then she spoke 
of her aunt, Madame de Montesquiou, whom 
she loved very much, because she had al- 
ways told her the truth. 



204 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

At the end, she wished to sign, but the 
good duchess had to be called, to place the 
writing-desk comfortably. Her daughter 
hastened to prepare her. "Mother,'* she 
said, laughing, " I am very weak ; that 
must be the case when one makes his will ; 
my hand trembles ; I think I am losing my 
memory, too. How must I write la Roche- 
foucauld ? " And she continued to laugh. 

Sustaining her daughter with one hand, 
and steadying the paper with the other, 
the courageous mother peacefully dictated 
each letter of the signature. 

This last night was cruel ; all the house 
were up. The sick woman seeing a servant 
come into her room, said to him : '' Why 
don't you go to bed t I would rather not 
disturb anybody." 

At the moment when her mother is her 
only support, she entreats her to go and 
take some rest ; on her refusing, she insists. 
Then the poor mother goes, but only to 
hide herself in the corner of the room. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 205 

She stays there for two whole hours, not 
daring to move, scarcely breathing, for fear 
of being perceived. At last, she allows 
herself to be torn away, as her daughter 
seems better ; but a moment or two after, 
she comes in again. *^ Mother," says the 
dying one, " the hour is come. Shall we 
both have courage 1 " 

The Abbe Legris-Duval, coming in at 
that moment, stands dumb with admiration 
before the picture presented to him. The 
expiring one has already put on the celes- 
tial glory of a transported serenity. Her 
mother stands at her side, her eyes riveted 
on her daughter. She is calm, but affect- 
ing in her intense expression of maternal 
anguish. She is great in all the majesty of 
religion and misfortune. Addressing her- 
self to the priest, the young woman says : 

*' I am about to die ; will you promise not 
to leave me until the end 1 '' 

" Ah, madame, I should have asked that 
of you as a favour." 



2o6 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

" Nor you, either, my good mother ? " A 
gentle embrace assures her. She adds : 
*'Let us make an act of renunciation as 
perfect as possible. My God, I surrender 
into Thy hands my soul and my life. I 
abandon all my interests to Thy love ; do 
with me as it pleases Thee. I unite my 
sufferings and my death to that of Jesus 
Christ, in whom alone I hope." 

Having thus expressed her own feehng, 
she asks them to pray with her, and repeats 
the acts of love and of faith pronounced by 
the priest, as if already she felt herself in 
the sensible presence of her God. While 
the witnesses of these last moments with- 
drew to give free course to their tears, the 
mother, always completely self-controlled, 
stays by her daughter, joins in her act of 
sacrifice, and makes her repeat it. 

All the house being assembled for the 
prayers of those in extremity, the sick 
woman turns to her father, and collecting 
all her strength, asks aloud for a last 
blessing. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 207 

He springs towards his daughter, em- 
braces and blesses her. '* Father, spare 
me," she says to him ; " I feel too much the 
sacrifices I have to make." 

Her mother, on her knees, betrays her- 
self this time ; her tears flow. " Preserve 
your courage," says Ernestine to her ; " we 
shall need it to the end." The husband, the 
brother, also, have their turn, and receive 
the last farewell which is only a rendezvous 
for heaven. Hope was so vivid, that it 
already transported the dying one to the 
happy term of exile. '' Shall I be in heaven 
soon } Is life about to end t When shall 
I see my God.^" Then moderating her 
desire, she added : " Let us not yield our- 
selves to impatience ; that would be giving 
place to temptation." She confided to the 
minister of Jesus Christ, with simplicity, 
her slightest imperfections, and when she 
could no longer make herself quite heard, 
her mother interpreted her confession. 

In the morning, when the Holy Sacrifice 



2o8 MadaTne de la Rochefoucauld. 

is offered with her intention, she renews 
her own sacrifice, her sufferings being ex- 
treme. ^* I am making my purgatory," she 
says, joyfully, as she keeps her eyes fixed 
upon the crucifix, and upon an image of the 
Blessed Virgin, which she kisses in turn, 
pronouncing the name of Jesus and Mary. 
Her last words were for her God and for 
her who had taught her to love Him. Feel- 
ing her tongue stiffen, she turns and says 
in a dying voice : " Mother, forgive me and 
bless your daughter." 

Although she had received the holy Via- 
ticum three days before. Monsieur Levis, 
thinking that so great faith and generosity 
authorized a dispensation, proposes to ad- 
minister the Holy Communion again. " It 
is all that I desire," she says, with trans- 
port. They make haste ; the time is short. 
For a moment her eyelids drop ; she seems 
to lose the use of her senses ; but scarcely 
is she in the presence of Him who has 
said *' I am the resurrection and the life," 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 209 

when her eyes open, and she is conscious 
of her privilege. She had feared that she 
might not be able to swallow the wafer, but 
with an impulse full of simple frankness, 
she cries : *^ Mother, I was able to receive 
it." These were her last words. At the 
same moment she lost consciousness, but 
without agitation or effort. Her condition 
was more like the peace of a soul lost in 
sweet contemplation, than the last failing 
of nature. 

While those who stood by, bathed in 
tears, asked each other whether she was in 
heaven or on earth, the dying woman bends 
her head towards her mother, and gives up 
her soul so gently, that Monsieur Levis is 
the first to perceive it. 

But the pious duchess, on her knees, 
motionless, watches still for a movement, a 
breath. She calls Ernestine ; no one dares 
to answer. At last. Monsieur Levis, with- 
out saying a word, draws the crucifix from 
the daughter's hands, and places it in those 
14 



2 lO Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

of the mother. How touching, how sub- 
lime was this afflicted mother Not a 

murmur, not a cry, but a torrent of tears, 
hitherto restrained, now suddenly deluges 
this cross. She seizes it, embraces it, and 
pressing it to her lips, seems to wish that 
she too might leave her last sigh there. 

A moment after she rises, approaches 
her daughter, puts her mouth a hundred 
times to the half open mouth, the lifeless 
eyes, questions her with her gaze, embraces 
her again, and sits down to see her better, 
and to satisfy her hunger for the last time 
with this heart-rending spectacle. 

After a moment of silence. Monsieur de 
Doudeauville proposes to his wife to with- 
draw. " I will do what you like,'' she an- 
swers, " though I am better off here than 
anywhere else." A few more minutes hav- 
ing gone by, he insists anew, and entreats 
her to go away. She gets up then, goes 
towards the bed, falls on her knees, makes 
a short prayer, again embraces those dear 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 211 

remains, and without a gesture or a cry, 
leaves her daughter forever. 

Having gone down to her family, she 
receives them with touching sweetness. 
But the measure of her strength is spent. 
Soon she loses consciousness and falls into 
a sort of delirium, succeeded by profound 
exhaustion ; and yet in the intensest mo- 
ment of her grief she keeps the expres- 
sion and the feeling of complete resigna- 
tion. 



i 

■ \ 


^ 


1 



CHAPTER VII. 

PRIVATE LIFE. 

Just as one cannot prevent at times a 
feeling of sadness in seeing the season de- 
cline, so, when arrived at the middle of its 
course, cold often enters the poor human 
heart, which measures by its own experi- 
ence the value of all good here below. 
But let us not pity the heart, for at this 
moment a rich and abundant harvest is 
preparing; if the autumn has not the 
charms and perfumes of the fresh season, 
it has others no less agreeable, and more 
precious for their usefulness. 

Howbeit the second part of the exist- 
ence of Madame de Doudeauville exhibits 
less brilliant features, it is not less rich in 
miracles of grace and holiness. Her mis- 
sion continues ; the past has given her an 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 213 

irresistible empire over her own people ; 
in her constant labour to keep herself in 
the background, whilst devoting herself 
to the happiness of all about her, she 
has become sovereign of the hearts which 
willingly suffer an ascendency exercised 
with so great love and modesty ! The 
sight of her recalls the canticle of her who 
is her model, — " My soul doth magnify 
the Lord, .... He hath regarded the 
lowliness of his handmaiden ! " In truth, 
while a thanksgiving is always on her lips, 
even after the greatest sacrifices, it seems 
as if the breath of vanity had no power to 
touch her. The blow just fallen has left 
in her heart a profound impression of sad- 
ness ; the image of her daughter, ever be- 
fore her eyes, brings her yet oftener to the 
foot of the cross ; it is not distraction that 
is wanted by this truly afflicted mother ; 
she has need to unite her sorrow with that 
of Calvary. 

One of the dominant thoughts of the 



214 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

virtuous duchess since the Revolution has 
been to contribute with all her power to 
set up the overturned altars, to restore the 
pious monuments to their proper destina- 
tion, and the parishes to their legitimate 
pastors. As soon as calm was somewhat 
established, on going to live on her fa- 
vourite estate, whose name she had borne 
before her marriage, she hastened to take 
the necessary steps with the authorities, 
sparing neither trouble nor sacrifice of all 
kinds, to put a faithful priest in the place 
of the intruder who was supplying the 
church of Montmirail. Thanks to her 
care, and^ above all, to her liberality, the 
new cure also entered the vicarage, which 
had been transformed for several years 
into barracks. 

Whilst she was herself negotiating all 
these affairs, and before they had arrived 
at a happy conclusion, she bought at Mont- 
lean, a suburb of Montmirail, the remains 
of an old Benedictine priory. She desired 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 215 

in this way to save the church from total 
destruction, to have a sure place where the 
Catholic worship would be exercised, and 
to make an honourable amend to the Lord 
for the outrages committed during the 
Revolution. Another reason which deter- 
mined her to buy this priory, was the piti- 
able state in which she found the asylum 
founded by the lamented John de Mont- 
mirail ; the sick poor were in uncom- 
fortable premises, given into hired hands, 
without any true comfort for soul or body. 
Madame de Doudeauville formed the proj- 
ect of appropriating the greater part of the 
buildings of Montlean to this hospital. 

In the time of the Gondi de Retz, the 
Castle of Montmirail had sheltered Saint 
Vincent de Paul, then tutor to the famous 
cardinal ; and the admirable founder of 
Saint-Lazan, and of the Sisters of Charity, 
did not forget the little town of Brie, in 
the first attempts at religious establish- 
ments, which he planned at that time. 



2 1 6 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Faithful to these sacred and honourable 
memories, the virtuous duchess confided 
the new asylum to the intelligent and 
devoted care of Sisters of Charity. She 
added to it a little free school and a work 
room for poor orphans ; but it was not 
without great difficulty that she realized 
her holy plans. 

It was in the very midst of this zealous 
work, that the good God afflicted her in 
the most sensible manner by caUing to 
Himself her beloved daughter. This sad 
event made her resolve to reserve for her- 
self the part of the church which for sev- 
eral years had been a pilgrimage of the 
Blessed Virgin ; to repair it, consecrate it 
to the cross, and to have a vault hollowed 
out to receive her Ernestine. She wished 
to have her near herself ; to pray over her 
tomb for the consummation of her happi- 
ness ; to find there the inspiration to do 
any good work, and from the hope of re- 
union to draw the courage needed to be 
faithful to all that grace demands. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 217 

While pursuing her plan, her heart is 
again saddened by a grievous loss. After 
being detained at Paris, to hasten the wind- 
ing up of some business, she made great 
speed to rejoin her mother-in-law, whom 
she had left at Montmirail unwell. She set 
forth then, as fast as possible, with her hus- 
band. On the way an accident to the car- 
riage having made the good duchess fear 
for a moment that her son was crushed to 
death, she experienced such a shock that 
her health was shaken by it for a long 
time. This was only the beginning of the 
troubles of this sad journey. As they 
approached home, the embarrassment of 
the castle-servants, their hesitation in an- 
swering the eager questions of the duke 

and duchess, increased their anxiety 

Their presentiments were only too well 
founded ; the viscountess had just expired 
in her easy-chair, without any suspicion 
on her part or on the part of those about 
her that she was near her end. The 



2i8 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

heart already wounded is more sensitive to 
fresh grief, and Madame de Doudeauville 
mourned with her husband a real mother, to 
whom the heavy trials borne together had 
knit her very closely. Amid her tears, there 
remained the great, the one consolation, of 
thinking that the sudden death had not 
been unexpected. From contact with her 
daughter-in-law, Madame de la Rochefou- 
cauld had become as remarkable for piety as 
she had always been for natural goodness. 

Now the project of making of Montlean 
a place of burial had raised many difficul- 
ties. Madame de Doudeauville encoun- 
tered opposition where she least expected 
it ; but she followed up her undertaking 
with as much firmness as moderation, and 
finally triumphed over every obstacle. 

On the 14th of September, 1804, the 
chapel of Montlean was solemnly opened. 
Monsieur TAbbe Legris-Duval, in an elo- 
quent discourse, announced the permission 
given by the sovereign pontiff to dedicate 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 219 

the altar to the Cross, and to celebrate 
there the two feasts of the Invention and 
Exaltation with full octave and rites. 

Two days after, the remains of Madame 
de Rastignac were brought from Paris 
and deposited in the vaults at Montlean ; 
they laid there, too, the body of the Vis- 
countess of Rochefoucauld and the heart 
of the Marshal of Estrees. 

Monsieur de Doudeauville was then trav- 
elling in Italy with his son and his son-in- 
law ; the virtuous duchess, who ordered all 
the preparations for the ceremony, gives 
him the account in this simple and touch- 
ing description : — 

" My dear Friend, — To-day the trans- 
portation of our beloved daughter is to 
take place. Pardon the details that I am 
going to give you, but I feel in my poor 
heart that they will interest you. I had 
not dared to mention the idea that pos- 
sessed me, thinking it would be. impos- 



2 20 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

sible ; but nevertheless I asked Arnolet, 
who from his attachment wished to be one 
of the witnesses, to assure himself of the 
condition in which she was. His manner 
of answering, after seeking information, 
showed me, that at the end of a year, it 
was probable that nothing would remain. 
But, to the astonishment of all, they found 
her as she was at the moment of her death, 
without the smallest sign of corruption, 
without odour. Arnolet recognized her per- 
fectly. They uncovered her face only, but 
on changing her from one bier to another, 
it was proved that the whole body was 
equally well preserved. Why could n't I 
have seen her once more ! They said she 
had a beatific expression. If that, coupled 
with the heroic sentiments of her last mo- 
ments, could give me the certainty of her 
present happiness, it seems to me I should 
be less unhappy. I shall have then in my 
possession, and you after me, and then our 
son, this precious deposit. May we all 
meet again in heaven ! " 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 221 

The new church, by its form, and the 
distribution of the daylight, recalled some- 
what the image and solitude of the tomb. 
On the left of the little nave was a chapel 
dedicated to our Lady of Pity. In the mid- 
dle of the sanctuary, raised five steps, was 
the altar, surrounded by funeral emblems, 
allowing one to see partially, beyond, a 
heap of rough stones covered with moss ; 
and from this rustic mound uprose a cross 
formed of a pine trunk in the bark. This 
cross in the darkness caught the sombre 
light of a sepulchral lamp which the altar 
hid from view. Under the sanctuary was 
the vault destined for the burying. It was 
to the foot of this cross that the duchess 
often came to renew the sacrifice of all that 
she held dearest, and to fortify her soul by 
the contemplation of the sufferings and 
humiliations of the divine heart of Jesus. 

The interest which she gave to sacred 
worship did not prevent her from directing, 
with admirable wisdom, her family affairs ; 



222 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

and her always increasing inclination for 
the mysteries of the Passion changed in no 
wise the charm of her intercourse and the 
sweetness of her relations with all. Good, 
devoted, vigilant, she takes in all her duties 
as wife, mother, lady of the manor, head of 
the house ; her eyes reach as far as her 
heart, and are never disturbed by passion. 
She has but one desire, — to do good, to 
relieve, to heal, to comfort, to preserve, to 
edify. This is the continual object of her 
thoughts, and mainspring of her actions. 
Grace has so penetrated her heart that she 
makes no distinction between express com- 
mand and simple counsel ; the most perfect 
has become to her an imperious necessity. 
With what tender solicitude does she 
watch over little Zenaide, doubly dear by 
the ties of nature and as the sacred legacy 
of her dying daughter. She begins again 
with this child the task she had so well 
accomplished in the early years of her mar- 
riage, and fearing that the atmosphere of 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 223 

mourning might sadden the years which 
crave Hfe and gayety, she gives her a com- 
panion in her games and her studies. 
Therese Perardel was just the same age 
with Mademoiselle de Rastignac, and hav- 
ing been brought up with her, she never 
left her, and became for the grandmother, 
as well as for the little girl, a friend as 
discreet as devoted, in whom they both 
placed the most entire confidence. 

It is a difficult thing to hold all the 
powers of the soul in such perfect equi- 
librium that the discharge of one duty 
should never interfere with the fulfilment 
of another, and that a strong affection 
should not sometimes become exclusive ; 
but this was not the case with the virtuous 
duchess. Monsieur de Doudeauville has 
kept carefully the letters which she ad- 
dressed to him during the different jour- 
neys which he took after the death of his 
daughter. We see in this correspondence 
the model wife who has perfect intelligence 



224 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

of her duty ; full of deference, she con- 
sults her husband on every occasion, and 
when she imparts her own ideas, she does 
it with so much tact and delicacy that she 
guides his decision while appearing only to 
ask his opinion. 

'' I hope you will not disapprove my little 
journey," she writes, ''for in all that I do 
I seek to divine your wishes." 

She is very attentive to the rules of the 

church, and knows admirably well how to 

Ijau couple the respect due to them with the 

considerations claimed by the health of her 

husband. She writes to him thus : — 

" My dear Friend, — One thing at 
which I absolutely take exception is your 
resolution to fast while you are taking the 
waters. I request you to consult the doctor 
upon this point, and to do what he shall 
tell you. You have manifested your faith 
in a high degree by observing the laws of 
abstinence up to this day. I am convinced 



a »v'i 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 225 

that you would do yourself real harm in 
continuing this longer. I do not know 
whether my letter will reach you. But 
what I know very well is that I am always 
troubled about your health, and that the 
consciousness of having been once mis- 
taken is reassuring neither for the present 
nor for the future, and justifies the anxiety 
of every moment. I have a grudge against 
my son, a little one against his wife, too ; 
a great one against Raphael, and finally 
against everybody, except the doctor if he 
has cured you.'* 

In looking over these letters it is pleas- 
ant to find this good minghng of warmest 
piety and tenderest sentiment. 

" How happy you are to have been at 
Annecy ! I would give all the rest of your 
journey for this one excursion, but not the 
pleasure which I should have had in mak- 
ing it with you. How many moments of 
rapture have I spent by the tomb of your 
IS 



2 26 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

favourite saint ! And how useful was his 
intercession in restoring peace to my soul, 
and in freeing it from the noxious vapours 
in which the sojourn at Genoa had envel- 
oped it ! What delicious expeditions among 
the poor those were ! How many lessons 
I received ! And what examples of virtue 
were given me ! God permitted this, and 
the remembrance will always be dear to 
me ! . . . . I feel moved in thinking of it, 
for my poor heart, torn with sorrow, does 
not keep back my soul from enjoying with 
transport all that connects it with its God ; 
and this is the happiness of the Christian ! 
Taste it, my dear friend ; may all whom we 
love share it with us, and may we one day 
in heaven drink in long draughts from this 
fountain of delights." t 

As the courageous duchess had preserved 
the family property during the Revolution, 
at the peril of her life, Monsieur de Dou- 
deauville was desirous that she should keep 
the administration of it. But if she ac- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 227 

cepts the trouble of managing the fortune, 
she wishes to leave the honour and the chief 
enjoyment of it to her husband, to whom 
she submits the details of any changes 
that are contemplated ; of any measures 
that are to be taken. She awaits his de- 
cisions, she makes a point of what he or- 
ders, and if a discussion arises between 
them, they wish mutually to yield the right 
of settling the question. 

This woman, so superior in all points, 
was endowed, as we have had occasion to 
see, with a great spirit of order and ad- 
ministration. She entered into the smallest 
details ; revised the greater part of her ac- 
counts herself ; made calculations ; acted 
in concert with her farmers : it was impos- 
sible to deceive her. Her charity as well 
as her justice prompted her to this wise 
vigilance. She looked upon herself as the 
trustee of a property belonging to her 
children and to the poor. She who was 
so careful to avoid waste, and any needless 



2 28 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

expense, not only carried on her house on 
a footing suitable to her rank, but showed 
herself truly great whenever there was an 
opening for succouring or obliging others. 
She united two qualities as precious as 
they are rarely joined : perfect order and 
inexhaustible generosity. Extremely deli- 
cate in any question of interest, she was 
always disposed to give a judgment against 
herself when there was the slightest doubt ; 
she would then say to her men of business : 

" I beg you, gentlemen, not to cause 
me to enter purgatory for a question of 
money." 

The following letter reveals at the same 
time the just mind, the clear sight, of a 
woman who, undazzled by a brilliant for- 
tune, wishes to limit her expenses to her 
income, and the delicacy of a heart which 
knows how to make an important sacrifice 
very gracefully. 

" You will never find me severe, when 
there is a question of giving pleasure to 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 229 

others, and particularly to your friends ; 
you are quite free, besides, to use your for- 
tune as you please, and you will never see 
me do otherwise than applaud or keep 
silence ; but I will tell you frankly that if 
we are rich, we are very embarrassed rich 
people. If we do not limit our charities 
and our expenses, we shall leave debts, or 
we shall encroach on our capital, which 
is' the same thing, and which agrees neither 
with our principles nor with our affection 
for our children. All these reflections come 
to me from my present occupation with 
your affairs, and from the fright occasioned 
me by the incalculable number of our ex- 
penses, which are always on the increase. 

I doubt whether Monsieur de N will 

be able to pay back the fifteen thousand 
francs ; but I shall share the pleasure you 
will have in giving them." 

In following the correspondence, we 
soon have the secret of these considerable 
payments ; besides the share of the poor, a 



2 30 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

large set-off from the income, are numer- 
ous pensions for those who have rendered 
services, and for certain persons fallen 
from opulence into want. Madame de 
Doudeauville had a particular regard for 
this kind of misfortune. As for the ser- 
vants, they formed such an integral part 
of the family that, once admitted into the 
house, they stayed there until their last 
breath. In their old age they were plied 
with delicate attentions, and the best care 
was lavished upon them in their sicknesses 
or infirmities. 

Where shall we find more faith, more 
delicacy and charity, than in the following 
lines, written by the pious duchess to her 
husband : — 

" My dear Friend, — Your man from 
Verneuil has arrived ; he is interesting, 
and very glad to enter your service. But 
you had n't told me that his wife is very 
ill. I was confounded when I saw a poor 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 231 

dropsical woman arrive, just on the point 
of being tapped ; but I thanked Heaven, 
and said to myself that it is by this sign 
we should recognize that they are designed 
for us." 

Such generous sentiments should excite 
gratitude and unfailing fidelity ; in fact, 
never were these so true and so oft re- 
peated words better realized than at the 
castle of Montmirail : " Good masters make 
good servants." 

One cannot read without emotion a page 
in his memoirs when the Duke of Dou- 
deauville, recalling the terrible invasion of 
1814, comes back to what concerns his own 
castle, and gives all the honour of its pres- 
ervation to the courageous devotion of his 
servants. But let us quote his own words : 
" If our castle is still standing, whilst the 
greater part of the neighbouring houses 
have been pillaged and destroyed, it is to 
the courage of our people that we owe it. 



2 32 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

Being detained at Paris, we relied entirely 
upon them to take the proper care of defend- 
ing our interests ; the principal responsibil- 
ity fell upon an old family nurse who was in 
my house in the capacity of housekeeper. 
Her name was Langlois. For about two 
months she never went to bed, and in ^pite 
of her sixty years, she was obliged to meet 
the exigencies of the numerous daily vis- 
itors. Once, for instance, her energy was 
put to a severe test. Some Cossacks hav- 
ing been killed in crossing the country, 
their regiment came the next day to burn 
Montmirail ; by dint of supplication, a com- 
mutation of the penalty was obtained. Six 
hours of pillage in the town, two hours at 
the castle, were judged a sufficient expia- 
tion for the blood shed. The inhabitants 
on all hands had fled into the woods. Our 
housekeeper alone dared to stay at her 
post. Presenting herself bravely before 
the forty Cossacks who came to execute 
the order given out, she asked them what 
they wanted. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 233 

" * To plunder ! ' they answered, with a 
laconicism worthy of Sparta. 

'< * Very well ; I will show you the way 
and open the doors for you/ she said, with- 
out losing her head. She did it, though, to 
prevent all disorder. 

** In the two hours' duration of this per- 
formance, she remained among the men, 
restraining them as best she might, allow- 
ing nothing to be broken, and even pre- 
venting them from carrying off the most 
precious things. This admirable conduct 
and rare courage left their mark upon the 
memory of the strangers, and eight or ten 
years after, a prince royal of Prussia asked 
one of my relatives, at Saint Petersburg, 
if this good lady, who kept them all re- 
spectful, was still in existence. She could 
not save from destruction, however, our 
poor merino sheep. She had found some 
protectors whom she placed herself, like a 
general, so that they called her General 
Langlois. But the soldiers had invented a 



234 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

new kind of fishery which they found much 
to their taste. They had partly taken up 
the tiling of the lofts above the sheep 
yard, and through the holes made in the 
floor they let down ropes, with which they 
fished up the rams and the sheep, and were 
highly pleased with their succulent catch ; 
we lost at this game nearly two hundred 
merinos, but the originality of the inven- 
tion made us laugh. 

" Once Napoleon dined at our castle ; 
another time he slept there. This night 
came near costing us dearly. Finding 
his chamber too small for his big maps, 
he wished to have what he called the par- 
tition knocked away ; but our good Lang- 
lois resisted him as she did everybody else, 
and the partition, which was nothing less 
than a wall three feet thick, was saved. 

"Though the Cossacks fell upon all 
whom they met, and made them act as 
guides, sometimes causing them to perish 
through fatigue and beating, my poor stew- 



p 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 235 

ard, Gallet, in spite of his seventy years, 
explored our farms, his stick in his hand, 
and cast about him for ways to ward off or 
remedy the devastations. 

" As to my valet de chambre, Raphael, 
the faithful companion of my exile, he gave 
me new proofs of his devotion. In a letter 
which chanced to reach me, he informed 
me, ' They are fighting in the town, they 
are fighting in the courts of your castle ; 
the balls reach the chamber where I am 
writing. I do not know what will be our 
fate ; but be sure that to the last we shall 
show ourselves worthy of such good mas- 
ters. I would only recommend to you my 
poor children/ 

" We sent word to them in every way, 
to leave everything, to give up everything, 
assuring them that we would much rather 
lose all than to make them run such ter- 
rible risk, or even to leave them exposed to 
such trial. Not one of them yielded to our 
prayers ; and even the servants whom we 



236 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

had at Paris begged us to let them go and 
aid their comrades to save our property. 
How much touched we were, and thrilled, 
by such proofs of attachment, and how 
they made amends for all our losses ! " 

In her practice, the virtuous duchess 
looked upon the little and great domestic 
vexations as a particular mark of favour, 
which, in calling for the exercise of charity, 
quietly increase the number of humble 
and solid virtues. Reproving the persons 
placed under her control with gentle firm- 
ness, she chose with good discernment the 
suitable time and way for giving directions ; 
but she bore with unchanging patience the 
tempers, the natural imperfections, and 
even the faults of character which she 
considered incorrigible. She never com- 
plained of them, and her example as well 
as her advice won the others over to this 
mutual support, indispensable to the pres- 
ervation of the union of hearts. Her pres- 
ence of itself dissipated any cloud arisen 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 237 

between two persons ; her expression of se- 
renity made the peace of heaven pass into 
all who approached her ; they felt that she 
was continually in the presence of her 
God. But her inexhaustible kindness did 
not prevent her from being dignified and 
imposing, especially if she had a lesson to 
give. A civic priest, having introduced 
himself into her house, in spite of the pro- 
test, found the duchess alone, seated in the 
parlour ; she did not rise to receive him, 
and she did not offer him a seat ; but he, 
retorting by insolence, took one without 
ceremony. She rose immediately, and lis- 
tened, standing, grave and cold, to what he 
had to say ; disconcerted by this attitude, 
which was a more expressive reproach than 
a long speech, the unhappy man made 
haste to get away. 

During the entire time of the intrusion, 
she never appeared at any of the parish 
offices, and had mass said in her oratory 
by some faithful priest. 



238 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

She took great heed never to scandalize 
any one, according to the counsel of the 
Apostle, who exhorts us to consider the 
weak. Whilst she was at work on the 
ornaments for the church, she would often 
occupy her spare hours on Sunday in ex- 
amining the week's work, and in compar- 
ing it with the design, which she composed 
herself. One day, when she was thus sit- 
ting before her frame, surrounded by pa- 
pers and pencils, she received a call from 
the wife of one of her farmers. Fearing 
that the sight of these instruments of work 
might scandalize the good woman, she 
tried to make her distinguish that this was 
not a servile work and contrary to God*s 
law ; but she soon perceived that she was 
not and never would be understood, for 
each of her explanations received invari- 
ably the same answer : " Yes, madame, I 
see very well, each one works in his own 
way.'* 

The pencils were forthwith laid aside, 



II 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 239 

and never reappeared except on fete days or 
Sundays. 

It was not by accident, or circumstance, 
and still less through caprice, that the good 
duchess applied herself to handiwork ; in 
all points like the virtuous woman, she 
understood plying her needle adroitly, and 
never lost an instant's time. The poor and 
the churches called out her zeal in this di- 
rection. The persons admitted to her inti- 
macy found her always occupied, and her 
work was a great help to her in escaping 
from conversation when she saw fit. She 
was at times seen to be deep in her em- 
broidery, and then all at once to come to 
the front, bringing back to the paths of 
charity those who were straying from it. 
As soon as she took up the thread of talk, 
they smiled pleasantly, seeing what she 
would make of it, for her reputation was 
thoroughly established. 

This assiduity in work induced her hus- 
band to address to her the following verses, 



240 Mada77te de la Rochefoucatild. 

which we shall quote to show the esteem 
and veneration in which he held her: 



With virtues and charms well adorned, 
And all without any pretension, 
My wife has still her head turned 

By this strange as it is a proud passion. 

She delighteth to work \^'ithout measure, 
This the object of all her desires ; 

While others run after pleasure, 
To work hard and well she aspires. 

In the name of all the others 
On this point I a little must pause, 

Full oft for the many are bothers, 
Of which thread and needle are cause. 

For ourselves let us not go too fast, 
And at least say no word of blame, 

Of merits the day is not past, — 
Good embroidery in Ji?t€ point earns fame. 

And therein is wisdom, in fact, 
For in all points what does not the man 

Who gets and who uses with tact 
The ver}- best canvas he can ? 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 241 

In winning approval from all 
My wife in all points does succeed, 

Which a very hard work we would call, 
Though to get it she takes but small heed. 

Of her kinsfolk and eke of her sex, 
Her talent, that brilliantly shines, 

Makes the ornament constant and complex, 
Because taste with the rest she conjoins. 

If everything please in her person, 
It is so in her work and her mmd ; 

There is none wiser or better than this one. 
For her first fault I never shall find. 

In spite of my talent for satire. 
Her point of my chief predilection, 

I must say, to be frank in this matter, 
Is the very fijte point of perfection. 

As the Duke of Doudeauville was fond 
of poetry, and found nothing comparable 
with his wife, he took advantage of the 
slightest circumstance to express his sen- 
timents to her in verse. Thus, on the 
teast of St. Augustine, he composed and 
distributed about him couplets adapted to 
16 



242 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

the occasion, where each found his compli- 
ment ready for him. The good duchess 
lent herself gracefully to these demonstra- 
tions, which were not naturally quite to 
her taste ; but one year these compositions 
were multiplied to such an extent that from 
morning till night she had the gratification 
of hearing her praises sung by everybody 
who encountered her. This day was so 
painful that she conjured her husband not 
to subject her to such a penance again ; 
and he then decided that all his attentions 
of this kind should come in future from 
the mouths of the little children, who, as 
she advanced in age, were multiplied about 
her. 

The real pleasure of this generous chate- 
laine was, on the fete days, to procure some 
indulgence for the poor of the country. 
This was her great delight ; she could only 
be happy in the happiness of others, as we 
shall see in the following passage : — 

*'I must tell you, my dear friend, that 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 243 

being once established * here, I should be 
very sorry to leave the place ; the same 
reasons which have attached me to it for 
many years exist and will exist until my 
last breath ; but they are all concentrated 
in a very narrow and very gloomy place. 
For the rest of the habitation, it has be- 
come for me what any place in the uni- 
verse would be. I believe, that is to say, 
it is animated only by the more or less 
happiness which I see those I love enjoy, 
for my heart alone is not dead in me ; this 
is said only once in passing, and never to 
be alluded to. I do not wish to think 
aloud on the subject." 

This dark and sombre place we know 
already ; unable to get there as often as 
her inclination prompts, the good duchess 
has in a secluded part of her garden a 
little hermitage, simple and solemn, where 
she loves to retire ; therefore, when, profit- 
ing by the permission she has generously 
given, the inhabitants of Montmirail come 



244 Madame de la Rochefoiuauld. 

to walk under the magnificent shade trees 
of the park, they know that no one must 
force his way through a certain green belt ; 
this is the retreat of the holy duchess. 
There, seated on the trunk of a tree, she 
has watched the ruins of Montlean rise 
again in the distance ; and while a dwelling 
for the God of the Eucharist and a place 
of repose for her beloved daughter were 
preparing, she has meditated long upon 
the instability of the things of earth. 
These reflections, w^hile they incite in her 
the desire to reach the end of her exile, 
make her wish more ardently for the per- 
fect accomplishment of the Divine Will. 

But let us take care not to imagine 
that the inhabitants of the castle and their 
guests had anything to suffer on account 
of this charm of solitude which the holy 
duchess felt ; nobody did the honours of a 
friendly hospitality better than she ; one 
was sure to breathe a beneficent air in the 
lands of Montmirail in every respect. If 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 245 

one was always edified by the noble and 
virtuous attitude of the mistress of the 
house; if, after talking with her, one felt 
himself nearer to God, one had never to 
fear tedious exhortations ; a word, an im- 
pulse of the heart, revealed casually the 
ardour of her faith ; but she did not 
preach ; only, there was in her so great 
compassion for all suffering, that without 
any direct advance, one felt impelled to 
open his heart to her. Then, she was sure 
to drop a word which one could not for- 
get ; he came back to her as to a vivify- 
ing spring. The young Viscountess de la 
Rochefoucauld, particularly, enjoyed and 
made the most of such good society. In 
1806 Monsieur Sosth^nes had married the 
only daughter of Duke Mathieu de Mont- 
morency. '' She was," says Monsieur de 
Doudeauville, " more adorned by her sweet 
piety than by the beauties of her person." 
Married at sixteen years, of a timid 
character, she was happy to find in her 






246 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

mother-in-law a gentle and wise adviser ; 
she hid nothing from her and told her her 
most private troubles with entire confi- 
dence. The good duchess loved and es- 
teemed her much, and took pleasure in 
praising her. She had only to say to her, 
'' My daughter, it is a duty ! " All was 
ended, no more objection, repugnance 
ceased, and the young woman gave herself 
warmly to that which cost her most. 

A close friendship linked the Dukes of 
Doudeauville and Montmorency, and when 
the latter, in 181 1, was banished from Paris 
for having visited Madame de Stael, who 
had saved his life, it was in the Castle of 
Montmirail, with his friend, that he passed 
pleasantly his three years of exile. Ma- 
dame de Montesquieu, in favour with Napo- 
leon, had obtained this mitigation of his 
proscription. She was then governess to 
the King of Rome, " much against her 
will," says her brother-in-law. It was upon 
Madame de Doudeauville that the emperor 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 247 

had first cast his eye to bring up his son, 
but having sounded the ground prudently 
first, he saw at once that he must not ex- 
pose himself to a refusal, and he made 
choice of Madame de Montesquiou. Let 
us borrow from the memoirs of the Duke 
of Doudeauville one sketch which proves 
the firmness of character of this worthy 
sister of our virtuous duchess : — 

"The Countess of Montesquiou enjoyed 
great credit and consideration from the 
head of state. She made no use of it ex- 
cept to be helpful to others, and kind to 
those who knew her. 

"The way in which she came to this 
place is curious enough, and deserves to 
be related. They spoke of her for it, but 
nothing was decided upon. She was at 
Trianon, at a little distance from Bona- 
parte. He wished only seven or eight per- 
sons at his table. Not expecting to be 
summoned, she had begged the chamber- 
lain in waiting not to forget her two dishes 



248 Madame de la Rochefoticatdd. 

of fish, for it was a Friday ; but all at once 
Napoleon had her told that she was to dine 
with him, and in fact, he put her at his 
side. 

^*' !More engrossed by her conscience than 
her honours, she saw^ wuth grief and embar- 
rassment that there was nothing prepared 
without meat ; but she began courageously 
to make her meal with butter. Her impos- 
ing neighbour looked at her and said never 
a word ; but the confusion of my poor 
sister-in-law increased when she saw the 
dishes that she had requested appear on 
the imperial table. She thought that her 
host would take offence at such an impro- 
priety ; but she ate, all alone, the dishes 
they brought her, none the less. Napo- 
leon still looked at her and said nothing. 

^'' Everybody was convinced that this act 
would condemn her forever in his mind. 
Two days after she received her nomina- 
tion as governess to the King of Rome. 
The Emperor of Austria, who was likewise 




Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 249 

one of the guests at this dinner, had not 
the same courage. He said, a few days 
after, to one of the children of Madame de 
Montesquiou, * I admired your mother, but 
did not dare to imitate her, though I hold 
• the same principles. She showed a char- 
acter which filled me with shame and 
envy.^ " 

In all Napoleon s court, there was only 
Madame de Montesquiou who had the cour- 
age to speak frankly to him. One morn- 
ing, when he came with Berthier to pay the 
young prince a visit, he said, taking his 
hand, — 

*' I hope it will know how to give a sword 
thrust some day!" 

" And I hope," said the governess, " that 
it will have learned first how to scatter 
many blessings." 



■ 

m 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NAZARETH. 

When Madame de Doudeauville saw the 
different works established at Montlean 
prosper in the hands of the Sisters of Char- 
ity, her indefatigable zeal projected the 
creation of still another : not far from the 
church, she had reserved to herself a mod- 
est habitation ; she brought together, there, 
a few nuns whom the Revolution had scat- 
tered, and she made for them a little board- 
ing-school, composed for the greater part 
of children of good families, ruined by the 
misfortunes of the times. 

Monsieur Legris-Duval was their first 
superior. He gave them in writing, not 
rules, for each one had her own, but very 
wise principles of conduct, designed to 
establish union and charity among them. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 251 

The new community took the name of the 
Ladies of Peace. 

In spite of the diversity of minds which 
must exist among persons of totally differ- 
ent orders, the house acquired a good repu- 
tation abroad, and under the direction of 
the excellent Abbe Legris-Duval, the pu- 
pils imbibed principles of sound piety. 

Like Madame de Maintenon formerly 
at Saint Cyr, so here the good duchess was 
the soul of the school, and she impressed 
upon the education tl\e simple and solid 
seal of her strong and gentle virtue, in- 
spiring the pupils with a spirit of order, of 
economy, of love of work, with the senti- 
ment of duty. She desired to prepare 
them for serious women, useful and pleas- 
ant in the family circle, capable of sacrifice 
and of influence for good. 

As long as the Abbe Legris-Duval lived, 
whose forbearance knew no bounds, the 
community seemed to be on good terms 
with one another ; but after his death, each 



252 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

nun wishing to make her primitive rule the 
predominant one, the pleasant relations 
came to an end. At the urgent request of 
the good duchess, Monsieur Frayssinous, 
and after him Father Roger, tried in vain 
to pacify the Ladies of Peace. 

These two men of large experience, 
struck with the w^ise and elevated views of 
Madame de Doudeauville, and despairing 
that they should ever see her attain her 
ends with such a diversity of minds, ad- 
vised her not to permit the community to 
extend, but rather to let it die out grad- 
ually. 

The superior, who had asked for author- 
ity to make a new building, and was dis- 
pleased at being refused, secretly planned 
her departure, and passed over into a neigh- 
bouring diocese with her little colony. 

This retreat, which was not to be re- 
gretted, caused the good duchess, notwith- 
standing, great embarrassment, — the ordi- 
nary signal for providential succour. She 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 253 

might have placed her young protegees in 
another estabhshment simply, and have 
given the house at Montlean up to some 
other purpose ; but it seemed to her that 
the good God asked the continuation of 
this work. She had just married her grand- 
daughter, Mademoiselle de Rastignac, to 
the Count of Rochefoucauld, and being 
thus left without a child about her, she 
was very fond of going to see her little 
scholars. Then, from this tomb where she 
sought her pious inspirations, she fancied 
she could hear a pressing invitation to per- 
petuate, as far as possible, her mission to 
the young. 

This meditative soul, which learned a 
lesson from everything, and which passed 
from reflection to practice, always increas- 
ing its circle of well-doing and felt a need 
to associate itself with the movement of 
regeneration which was everywhere man- 
ifested. Knowing that one must build 
the edifice from the foundation, she was 



254 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

rejoiced at the enthusiasm with which 
some of the old and some of the new re- 
ligious bodies gave themselves up to the 
work of the education of young girls ; but 
for this important task she had her own 
idea, her private thoughts, the fruit of ex- 
perience. 

If, as she had said to her daughter, that 
fallen grandeur, those ruined fortunes, that 
complete overthrow which she had wit- 
nessed/induced her to exclaim, " God only 
is stable ! '* she drew from the uncertainty 
of the times and of things this other con- 
clusion : the necessity of strengthening the 
character, of preparing a young girl early 
in life to endure reverses, not only in a 
spirit of faith, but also with intelligent and 
practical courage. She wished her to be 
initiated little by little, as far as her age 
allowed, into the details of domestic life, so 
that if some day the young girl should 
find herself obliged to serve herself, and to 
come to the aid of her people, she would 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 255 

not feel herself demeaned, and would not 
be strange to the work which Holy Scrip- 
ture has so highly praised. 

To attain this end, Madame de Dou- 
deauville wished to offer, to the families 
whom modern luxury terrified, establish- 
ments more apart from the great world, 
where, in giving complete and distinguished 
instruction to their children, the special 
care should be to bring them up in antique 
and noble simpHcity, to inspire them with 
serious tastes, to give them the habit of 
work, and in a word to fit them for good 
mothers of families and wise heads of 
houses. 

To these principles of education the 
pious duchess joined a strict estimate of 
the religious life, which she wished to be 
perfect in its spirit, and very simple in ex- 
terior practice. 

We remember with what ardour she 
sighed for the cloister in childhood and in 
youth. She wished to give herself up en- 



I 



256 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

tirely. God, while accepting her offering, 
had kept her still in the world, and fixed 
her there against all her inclinations, but 
He did not leave sterile the first and holy 
desire of His generous servant. He pre- 
destined and prepared her a long time 
back to found a new community ; whilst 
grace made to flourish in this elect soul 
the humble and lovely virtues of which the 
Holy Family has given us the example in 
the little hamlet of Nazareth, Providence 
allowed her to face all the difficulties of 
life, in order to offer to the young girls 
whose education filled her mind, an ac- 
complished model of what they were to be 
for the family and for society. 

Father Roger, who was endowed with 
a particular talent for discerning divine 
inspiration, thought to recognize it clearly 
when the holy duchess confided to him her 
plan of a foundation. Without foreseeing 
how she would be able to accomplish it, he 
advised her to preserve her little school. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 257 

Then she made a real sacrifice in separat- 
ing herself for the time from Mademoiselle 
Ther^se, her reader and secretary, in order 
that she might take the direction of the 
few boarders left by the Ladies of Peace, 
until God manifested His will. 

The little building was not to be made 
from the old stones ; the vigorous chisel of 
Father Roger was to work on new stones. 
Let us say a word about this holy religious, 
sent by Providence to the venerable found- 
ress to be the soul of the work which she 
was planning. 

Father Roger, born at Coutances, in 
1763, studied at Paris with application and 
piety, and received holy orders there. Dur- 
ing the revolutionary storm he exiled him- 
self in Germany, where some young eccle- 
siastics of his acquaintance made him enter 
the society of the Fathers of the Sacred 
Heart, which became later that of the 
Fathers of Faith. 

When, towards 1800, his superiors sent 
17 






258 Madame de la Rochefoticatild. 

him back to France, Lyons opened a great 
field for his talents and zeal. He filled 
the little city with fervent associations, 
which, imbued with his zeal, continue 
to give themselves to works of mercy in 
the obscurity of humble and silent devo- 
tion. 

In 1808 a new^ storm having driven the 
holy missionary back to his natal city, he 
raised from its ruins, and wisely governed 
the seminary of Coutances ; but as soon 
as the Company of Jesus was reestablished, 
in 1 8 14, he abandoned his post, and has- 
tened to Paris to solicit admission. After 
his first vows, he discharged the important 
function of Novice IMaster ; then for twelve 
years, from 181 8 to 1830, while established 
in Paris, he gave himself with all the ardour 
of his zeal to the exercise of the holy min- 
istry, embracing in his immense charity all 
classes of society. Following the counsel 
of the apostle, he made himself all things 
to all men, if he might gain them for Jesus 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 259 

Christ. The poor, especially they of the 
Faubourg Saint Marceau, were the particu- 
lar objects of his favour. His compassion- 
ate heart could not approach distress with- 
out feeling the yearning to relieve it, and 
seeking the means to do it. "He was,'* 
says Father Guidee, " a man of lively and 
active faith, excellent in counsel ; a con- 
summate director in the road to God ; 
always full of simplicity and directness ; 
attracting, charming all who approached 
him, by his qheery and affable demeanour, 
and gaining all hearts by his obliging kind- 
ness." 

Let us add to these outlines of exact 
truth, the witness of a priest who had 
known him well : — 

" I don't know that I can tell you more 
than you already know concerning good 
Father Roger. I shall always recall with 
emotion his wise counsels, and shall ever 
bless divine Providence for having brought 
me into communication with him 



26o Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

During my retreats he said things to me 
that were really flashes of fire. 

" I think I can see him now arrive in the 
evening at my house, after a fatiguing day ; 
giving himself up readily to his natural 
gayety, he would say a kind word to warm 
the heart and put one at ease ; then he 
would seat himself in his easy-chair, and 
when there, would talk to me of the good 
God with a faith, simplicity, and love which 
I have never found in any other. What 
faith it was ! . . . . If Saint Paul would 
know only the cross. Father Roger would 
know only his Credo. What simplicity ! 
.... To go straight to God by the short- 
est road, that was his maxim. What love 
for Jesus ! . . . . What clear intelligence 
of the mysteries ! . . . . How often have 
I seen him weep in speaking of that Jesus 
whom he loved so well ! . . . . How 
many times have I thrown myself at the 
foot of my crucifix after talking with him. 
Then, what a holy liberty he took in telling 



i 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 261 

the great and the world's people, not the 
truth which flatters, but that which illu- 
mines ! What tact in stealing into a 
heart in order to open it and gain it for 
Jesus Christ ! 

" With his naturally ardent and active 
character, the holy man could not have 
attained to this perfect affability, to this 
even and amiable kind-heartedness which 
all admired, without many efforts. One 
found him always ready to listen, to say 
the word which instructs, which comforts 
or reassures. Nothing can give an idea of 
the tone of his voice in speaking of the 
loving kindness of our Lord. I cannot for- 
get the expressiveness with which he said 
to a person troubled by excessive fear at 
the approach of her communion : ' But, my 
good daughter, what has Jesus done, that 
you should fear Him so much ? ' 

" This compassion for those who suffer, 
this longing to come to their aid, made 
him beloved by all. Who could ever say 



262 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

how much this good father was loved and 
revered by the working class, by children, 
and the poor?" 

So soon as the jhous duchess learned to 
know Father Roger, she put herself un- 
der his guidance ; the savour of his words 
was pleasant to her soul — for those wrris 
which escaped firom a heart burning -- 
a love of God, were full of strength 
unction. This kind of spirituahty ansiveied 
to the inclination she had always had for 
the hidden life ; hence she consulted this 
wise director in all her works^ and he, on 
his s:^e. held h:? renitent in particular 
esteem. 

By a ^:: t ^ : :. :;:e. at about 
the sanxe t: r z . . - Z :/::-5 of Dou- 
deauvflle p': rself under the direction 

of F:: :rr Rr^er, she entered also into so- 
cial 7A into association in good 
wor^ - ire: e r!:5i RoDat^ 

who »VtL3 — '■ ~ ~ ~ ~^" cTTr^rnrkT 

of Nazareth. Tiiese l:.--er _r:i:„t e: 



I 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 263 

closely attached. With a great difference 
of character, they had marked features of 
resemblance : an ardent and generous piety, 
the love of duty, the desire of perfection, 
zeal for good ; each sought the other with 
equal eagerness. But the perfect tact of 
Mademoiselle l^lisa Rollat always recog- 
nized, even in the closest intimacy, the 
proper distinction of age and position. 
She had for the duchess a deference full 
of veneration. On the other hand the pious 
duchess, who silently admired her, showed 
her the fullest confidence ; she loved the 
frank gayety, under which a very serious 
mind was hidden. With Mademoiselle jfili- 
sa, she allowed her faith and piety to speak 
without constraint, sure of finding a com- 
plete conformity of sentiment. When these 
ladies left Paris for the country, a continu- 
ous correspondence supplied the place of 
their conversations. In this simple free- 
dom of speech, Madame de Doudeauville 
lets the secret of her humble and strong 



264 Madame de la Rochefoticauld. 

virtue sometimes slip out. A few passages 
from her letters will help us to know her 
more fully. 

" I leave on Thursday. Sad for think- 
ing that I am going far from the resources 
which my weakness needs. But God is 
ever}^where, and He lets Himself be found 
when one seeks Him purely and simply ; 
ask for me that I may meet Him. May 
He alone be our study ; may His Divine 
Will find no obstacle in our souls ; or at 
least may His love triumph over them. 
These, dear fiisa, are the prayers that I 
make for you, and whose fulfilment I beg 
you to petition for me ; that will be more 
difficult, but difficulties do not dishearten 
me. 

'' Adieu ! I miss your visits and read- 
ings, much ; you have inspired me with 
a real friendship, of that kind which life 
does not end." 

Ten days after, she sends her news of 
herself. " Here I am in the most profound 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 265 

solitude. I find myself well thus, and too 
much to my taste. My character being 
independent, that which brings me into 
subjection at every moment must be more 
useful for me, and perhaps it may be only 
on account of my tendency to indepen- 
dence that I love solitude ; at least, I enjoy 
it when God sends it to me ; I would like 
to make a better use of it, but I believe I 
ought never to seek it, for it makes me too 
happy. 

'' The correspondence of Zenaide is 
charming ; her children are delightful. 
Little Alfred pronounced the name of God 
yesterday for the first time. 

" My health has been poor for a fortnight, 
so that I am positively stupid. God wills 
it, and I will it with Him. Let us love, 
dear filisa, this Divine Will, for the accom- 
plishment of which our good Master came 
on earth. 

" Adieu. It is at the foot of the cross 
that I like to find myself with you. I have, 



266 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

however, the weakness to wish that you 
may not have crosses too painful to bear." 

Father Roger was still another tie be- 
tween these two souls ; and hence, after a 
short stay which he made at Montmirail, 
the good duchess writes to her friend, — 

** I think, dear Elisa, that I shall give 
you pleasure in sending you news of the 
person who interests you ; his health is 
better since he reached here. People think 
he has much mind, eloquence, and eleva- 
tion, and withal charming simplicity. My 
son loves him extravagantly. Monsieur de 
Doudeauville fancies him much, and my 
daughter-in-law appeals to him and wishes 
that he might be here whenever she is. 
He has had a great success, then, in our 
family circle, such as hoUness and virtue 
will always have. He is so good, one finds 
there is so much to be gained from him ! 
His lively faith has made a deep impres- 
sion on me. 

" You sent us some very nice hymns ; 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 267 

The Cross, Solitude, The Blessed Virgin, 
The Love of God, have been sung in the 
parlour several times, to the satisfaction of 
all. If you could compose one on faith, it 
would give great pleasure to my daughter- 
in-law, and to me also. 

" Let us seek God, dear filisa ; let us 
seek Him purely. Let us love Him with 
all the capacity He has given us to love 
Him with. Let us love Him in His crea- 
tures, but let it be for Him. Let us seek 
the cross, humiliations. Let us give our- 
selves up to His good pleasure, and let us 
abide in peace. This is what I desire for 
you as for myself, and I see, without jeal- 
ousy, that you will arrive at it before I 
shall. 

" Since you want me to tell you about 
my health, I will say that it is not any too 
good, and I may be obliged to give up to 
it for two or three days. To do enough 
without doing too much, is a thing almost 
impossible for me to achieve, with my char- 
acter. 



268 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

" Adieu, dear filisa ; I always forget my- 
self when I am chatting with you. It is 
one proof the more that I am not morti- 
fied, that I seek my enjoyment ; but that is 
allowed us, you know ; we must get benefit 
from it, if in our pleasures we thank Him 
who has united our hearts in His love." 

When the Ladies of Peace went away, 
the good duchess expresses her disappoint- 
ment to Mademoiselle Elisa, but, as always, 
her faith prevails over every other senti- 
ment. 

" Yesterday I received a letter from Ma- 
dame de Saint Ambroise, w^ho informs me, 
after a six months' silence, that all her little 

colony are going to M . They are 

going there to found a house, with the sav- 
ings of seventeen years ; and mine stands 
wirh its four walls, and the poor children 
without a mistress. May God be praised ! 
.... Thank Him for this new cross, and 
ask Him to make us to know His will. 
There are painful things in connection with 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 269 

all this, — many I feel very sensibly ; but 
since I have done nothing to bring about 
this unfortunate result, I look upon it as a 
permission of Heaven. I adore, and hold 
my peace." A little while after, her sadness 
changed to joy ; the pious duchess foresaw 
that her friend might some day become the 
foundation-stone of which she had need. 

'* Dear ^lisa, your last letter, so good, so 
amiable and touching, gives me much to 
think about ; perhaps my imagination goes 
too fast and too far ; but, however that 
may be, it gives me hopes, which, if they 
are ever realized, will crown my wishes. I 
should be all the happier, because I have 
asked for nothing, and the will of God 
would then begin to manifest itself in fa- 
vour of an enterprise which till now has 
seemed a foolishness." 

The hope is confirmed ; the project of 
the foundation becomes a common work. 
Being too much occupied to write himself, 
Father Roger sends his counsel and sug- 



2 70 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

gestions through Mademoiselle ifilisa to the 
holy founder. The commission is a deli- 
cate one, but the tact of the one and the 
virtue of the other smooth all difficul- 
ties. 

'' Once for all, don't be uneasy, dear 
Elisa ; nothing that you say can trouble me. 
I know your motives too well ; moreover, it 
is not my nature to attach too much im- 
portance to little things ; and then, when I 
am sure of a person, he has the right to 
say anything to me. I desire in your 
correspondence confidence, frankness, and 
simplicity. You satisfy me in all these 
points, and amuse me besides by your gay- 
ety. Why, then, do you take such precau- 
tions about telling me that in Father Ro- 
ger's opinion I am managing badly with 

Mademoiselle C ? The contrary would 

surprise me ; but for me to be making 
a mistake is so natural ! . . . . Never fear 
giving me pain on such an occasion as 
this." .... Always ready to find edifica- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 2 7 1 

tion in, and to render justice to true de- 
votion, Madame de Doudeauville, happy in 
seeing at the work a future member of the 
community of Nazareth, expresses her joy 
to Mademoiselle ;^lisa. 

*' I feel the need of telling you all my 
friendship for you, from time to time, and 
yield yet more to the necessity of speaking 
to you of our business matters. 

" Mademoiselle Mouroux doubtless keeps 
you informed of the good order of the 
house, but what she is certain not to have 
spoken to you about, is the perfect way in 
which she acquits herself in her new po- 
sition. She is overburdened, I am sure, 
for she has the care of everything, and yet 
does not look so very busy ; there is al- 
ways the same serenity. I assure you 
that she is very virtuous ; the more one 
knows her, the more precious qualities one 
discovers in her, and the more heartily one 
thanks Heaven for having sent her to us. 
She is an angel whom God sustains, and 



2^^2 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

who does the children great good But be 
quite easy in your mind, she has no sus- 
picion of my opinion of her ; I intended 
this should be so, but, moreover, Father 
Roger also recommended it strongly." 

These letters are dated 1820 to 1821. 
Whilst Providence prepares the way for 
Mademoiselle RoUat, and disposes every- 
thing for the foundation of Nazareth, the 
holy duchess is again fastened to the cross. 
For some time her sight had been sensibly 
failing ; one day when she was reading her 
prayers in the chapel at Montlean, it 
had seemed to her as if a veil were passed 
before her eyes ; the characters of the book 
getting confused, she shut it, made her 
sacrifice, accepted all its consequences, and 
appeared amid her family neither troubled 
nor afficted by it For two years she 
had to deny herself all reading, and could 
write only with great precaution. Ha\diig 
become totally bhnd in 1821, in spite of 
the urgency of her husband she did not 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 273 

wish the operation for cataract to take 
place ; this was the way God had taken, 
she said, to withdraw her from the things 
of this world. What she did not say, but 
what she understood very well, was, that 
blindness, while keeping her constantly de- 
pendent, would also necessitate the per- 
petual sacrifice of her own will. What an 
exercise of patience for an active person, 
always accustomed to direct all the affairs 
of her house ! 

But in seeing her always serene, one 
would not suspect that it was a trial to her 
to ask, to wait for a guide ; she is so happy 
to do the will of the Master, and to have 
a shadow of likeness to Him ! Were the 
divine eyes not veiled by the bandage on 
the day of the Passion ? . . . . It is at 
this moment, when, more than ever, she 
needs her secretary and confidante, that she 
deprives herself of her services for the 
good of the little school at Montl^an. 
Without laying any stress upon what must 
18 



274 Madame de la RockeftnumMlL 

have inconv^enienced her, she is content to 
write to Mademoisene Elisa : — 

" I shall miss Therese on account of my 
blindness, but one must not count his 
sacrifices." 

This little foundation has become the 
work of her heart. She occupies herself 
very much with it, while being entirely sub- 
missive to what God shall decide. Her 
purity of intention is always so j>erfect 
that, in spite of her desire to attach to her- 
self capable persons, she writes : — 

•* Mademoiselle C has taken a great 

friendlship for me; we have passed eight 
days together. I have discovered sundry 
good qualities in her ; she might be very 
useful to us, and as she has grown fond of 
me. sr.e seemed to regret her first refusal. 
I S3.':v very well that she wished to bring 
about my saying, 'You would give me 
pleasure if you were to remain.' Not 
finding sufficient ground for bringing God's 
blessing upon it, I let her go. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 275 

"And here we are in great embarrass- 
ment. In the eyes of reason, we are doing 
many inconsistent things, but how good it 
is to put this aside sometimes, — this hu- 
man reason ! . . . . Monsieur Roger has 
assured me that it must needs be that peo- 
ple should ridicule us." 

In 1822 Mademoiselle filisa Rollat find- 
ing herself at liberty, the community at 
Montlean began to get into shape. It 
would be an error to consider the holy 
duchess as a simple temporal founder of 
this little society ; full of the spirit with 
which she desired to see it animated, she 
constantly practised the virtues which were 
to distinguish the nuns of Nazareth. If 
Father Roger, overpowered with work and 
charged with important labours, gives all 
his care, and devotes long hours to these 
few persons, joined together to imitate the 
laborious and hidden life of the Holy Fam- 
ily, it is that he has been struck by the 
living light diffused in a soul, whose holi- 



-> -t 



m 



1 



176 Madame de la Rockefam€mii0tk 

ness re a 3 so grea: v -S :o exclaim: 
I re^y do not know h _^ ^ will man- 
age :d make her pass twenty-four hours in 

H- is astonished, with reason, to find 
:~an of the world such just ideas 
: t re":gious vocation, and these are 
::: ^entra.' notions; she has her private 
thoughts, her project; though the exterior 
plan is not designed, she sees : e::h ±e 
end to be attained and the kind of perfec- 
tion ; one would say that the Holy Spirit 
hai been long pr^)aiing her for it, since 
m ■ er meditations she has alwajrs fdt her- 
se'.: i^::. :: :j contemplate the hidden life 
:: Jesus of Nazareth. She had spoken of 
:: s: much with her chhiren and grand- 
children that Mademoise.'e Zenaiie, cer- 
tain of pleasing her, had had : e thought- 
fulness to offer her as a spe: e: :: her 
first work a picture erf the r\L\: r;r.ily, 
copied ahter CaraecL In truth,a::tne: Di- 
vine -- \:^:^ n:^d also great charm for the 



m 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 277 

pious duchess ; she went alternately from 
Jesus the child of Nazareth, to Jesus on the 
Cross, and she would have liked to join in 
outward form what harmonized so well in 
her own soul ; but as it was to be a house 
for education, the name of Nazareth had 
the preference, — Nazareth at the foot of 
the Cross, having the Cross for the founda- 
tion, the cradle and support. 

Finding, then, in the holy founder every 
sort of helpfulness, at Montlean they are 
not content with receiving her with all 
respect and gratitude, but they consult her 
on every point, and initiate her in all the 
details ; she is called upon to examine sub- 
jects, to pronounce upon difficult cases, and 
she treats each question with as much wis- 
dom as humility. 

She knows the religious and the pupils ; 
she watches the progress of her little pro- 
tdg^es, takes much interest about their fu- 
ture, and tries to make one for them ; she 
is a mother and a saint for all the children 
of Nazareth. 



278 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

On the holidays she comes, full of friend- 
liness, to encourage their games, and to 
preside over their little literary meetings. 
Her gentle gravity is never a restraint, for 
nobody knows better, that childhood needs 
a full liberty of expression. 

She had inspired her husband with the 
same feelings of interest and affection for 
the new community. Both of them agree- 
ing that a house of education should not 
be placed next door to a hospital, and that 
the chapel should not be common to the 
pupils and the patients, they had made 
fresh sacrifices to transfer the sisters of 
charity to Montmirail, in order to leave to 
Nazareth the buildings and all the depen- 
dencies of the ancient priory. To this do- 
nation their zeal for religious worship had 
induced them to add a government an- 
nuity, for the support of the church. 

The relations of the community with 
the Duke of Doudeauville were as simple 
as they were pleasant. He felt as much 






Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 279 

interest in the prosperity of the establish- 
ment as his wife/ and seized every occa- 
sion to testify to Mademoiselle Rollat his 
good will and devotion. He encouraged 
the studies, distributed the prizes, and pro- 
vided amusements for the pupils. Thus, 
whenever the feast of Saint Augustine 
came round, he did them the honours of 
a grand lunch, with that perfect urbanity 
which distinguished him until the end of his 
days. His presence and protection never 
caused the smallest embarrassment, for, in 
his respect for the religious rule, he would 
inquire the convenient time, would arrive 
on the instant, and had for every occasion 
the appropriate graciousness which doubles 
the value of a service. The good duchess 
was happy in seeing his interest in her 

1 The details of the community and the boarding- 
school of Nazareth are naturally reserved for the life 
of the Reverend Mother Rollat, the first superior of the 
society, which will be a separate work, a sort of continu- 
ation and supplement of this. 



28o Madamu de la RackefimtmM. 

commumfj, and he. ob \ss side, d^^hftod 
to giie his wize : : :: : :::rL 



At 

5 ; an my 

tar sister 

t fingSL 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 281 

ocean of bitterness ! Happy she who lives 
by faith, and who, peacefully occupied by 
domestic matters, leaves to God the care of 
directing for His glory the divers events 
which agitate governments. She lives in 
peace amid convulsions, and finds her re- 
pose in the accomplishment of the divine 
will. The Lord, always good and full of 
pity, will preserve under the wings of His 
Providence the poor little creature, who in 
her anxiety and alarm looks upon herself 
as lost, and yet wishes to have no other 
resource and asylum than the divine heart 
of Jesus. How well I love to see these 
amiable sentiments, which you share so 
fully with her, in my good sister, and how 
happy I should be if I might take part in 
your conversations ! Be assured, madam, 
that I am in heart in the very midst of you 
all, and that I do not cease to present you 
both to the Lord/' 

When the terrible scourge of 1832 makes 



282 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

its appearance, the good father reassures 
and strengthens them. 

" I know your feeling, madam, enough 
to be persuaded that even amid epidemic 
disease you will lose neither your peace of 
soul nor repose of heart. You are too re- 
signed to the will of God to wish anything 
different from that which He wills. Be- 
sides, He does not need the cholera to take 
from us a life which belongs to Him, and of 
which He is master. Let us live peacefully 
and without anxiety. Say this, please, to 
Mademoiselle Rollat ; I do not wish that 
any one should be able to offer to one of 
my daughters the reproach which our Lord 
addressed to Saint Peter : ' O thou of little 
faith, wherefore dost thou doubt } ' 

" Give yourselves up to Him ; and above 
all put no faith in the multitude of prophe- 
cies which agitate the mind, excite the im- 
agination, and prevent each one from doing 
what God asks of him. 

" May the Lord preserve you long, mad- 






Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 283 

am, for the happiness of 3^our own family 
and of that which you have adopted ; may 
He give me the blessing to see you again, 
and to continue with you the excellent 
work which we have undertaken." 

But alarm quickly fills the father s heart, 
and he who has reassured and comforted, 
has need to be consoled in his turn: — 

" Since I wrote to you, Madame la 
Duchesse, I feel an always increasing anx- 
iety, and want extremely to get news of 
you, of your excellent family, and of our 
dear house of Nazareth. I can truly say 
my soul is profoundly sad, and that my 
Allelujah cannot bring it the semblance 
of joy. To my troubles and sorrows of 
mind I join fear and anguish while think- 
ing of your griefs, of the danger which you 
run in the midst of this plague which is 
ravaging Paris, and in calling to my mem- 
ory so many who are dear to me, especially 
my sister at Nazareth and her children. 
We are really now beneath the Cross, and 



284 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

we feel its heavy weight. Let us often re- 
peat our Lord's prayer in the Garden of 
Olives. But in charity soothe my suffer- 
ings in telling me about your own. I 
would rather know than be ignorant of 
them, and I hope that God will give me 
grace to be resigned to His holy will/* 

After so much suffering, at last they 
have the pleasure of meeting ; but the holy 
founder is absent. Father Roger wishes 
that she should have her share in the com- 
mon rejoicing. 

" Madame la Duchesse, — You have 
already learned, through Mademoiselle Rol- 
lat, the kind reception I had on my arrival 
at Montmirail, from all, even the inhabit- 
ants, but most particularly from the fam- 
ily at Nazareth, who, without distinction 
of person or rank, religious and pupils, 
rushed in a body to meet me in the court- 
yard, and expressed their joy in such a 
sweet way, so respectful and so reserved, 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 285 

that I recognized the peace of the Spirit of 
God, and was affected and edified by it. 
What a comfort it is to a father to meet, 
after long absence, his dear children in the 
Lord ! . . . . The next day was celebrated, 
as was right, by a solemn mass in honour of 
Saint Joseph, and by that joyful merriment 
which belongs to a great holiday. May 
all the good that you have done in this 
house come back to you, Madame la 
Duchesse, and to your excellent family ! " 



m 



I 



m 



CHAPTER IX. 

HOPES AND FAMILY GRIEFS. 

Whilst the pious duchess scattered 
abroad the charm and perfumes of virtue 
in all her relations and acts of life, the 
Duke of Doudeauville, since his return 
from emigration, pursued, amid political 
commotions, a career of devotion to his 
country and to the cause of the unfortu- 
nate. By turns, and at times simultane- 
ously, president of the Council General of 
the Marne and director of the Committee 
of Primary Instruction of the Seine, he 
sits in the Chamber of Peers, and takes his 
place amongst the managers of the deaf 
and dumb institutions and the hospitals of 
Paris ; he embraces in his sympathy every 
kind of suffering, and flies to the succour 
of the poor, the aged, and the orphan. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 287 

Being nominated Postmaster-general in 
1 82 1, afterwards Minister of State, and 
rnember of the Privy Council, he becomes 
in 1824 Minister of the King's Household. 
It was the position that suited his character 
best, and it got him opportunity of aiding 
thousands of sufferers. Amid his multi- 
farious occupations, which all had to do 
with the welfare of the nation, he took 
upon himself the duty of presiding over 
the sessions where the poor petitioners 
were heard. Once, seeing him spent with 
fatigue and teased with fever, people ad- 
vised him to forego this self-imposed task. 
"It is not indispensable that my health 
should be preserved," he answered, " but it 
is that the unfortunate should not be kept 
waiting." 

His kindness of heart was never weak- 
ness, however, and if he were eager to 
oblige, it was never at the expense of a 
firm, just, and clear conscience, fie greatly 
appreciated the care given to education, 



I 



288 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

and felt all the weight of this heavy re- 
sponsibility. Having the chief direction 
of the pages, he discovered, with great 
pain, that the innocence of the new-com- 
ers was in danger from some of the older 
pages. Immediately, without consideration 
for name or position, he sends away the 
culprits, and resists their supplications as 
well as the warnings that he will incur the 
royal displeasure. This is his account of 
his interview with Charles X. : — 

" The king called for me the next day, 
and said to me, ' Duke of Doudeauville, 
what did you do yesterday ? ' 

" ^ Sire, my duty/ 

" ' You were terribly severe.' 

" ' I was only just.' 

" 'You have lost five interesting children/ 

" ' I have only punished them as they 
deserved, and besides, I did it as gently 
as was possible.' 

" * What severe punishment for a foolish 
joke ! ' 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 289 

'* ' A joke ! Sire, such a one as corrupts 
youth, poisons places of education, and 
makes parents wretched ! ' 

" 'You should at least have notified me.* 

" * I had not the time, for there was not 
a moment to lose, and my responsibility, 
as well as the morals of the nice boys in- 
trusted to me, was gravely implicated/ 

" ' If you had spoken to me, I should have 
said to the parents, Your children are be- 
having very badly, and I shall send them 
home if they do not conduct themselves 
better in a month's time/ 

"'Ah ! Your majesty will find me very 
presumptuous, but I congratulate myself a 
hundred times that I said nothing about it, 
for my good youths would have been un- 
done, and the house, too/ 

" ' For all that, if such a thing had hap- 
pened, you should have acquainted me 
with it before taking any action/ 

** * Sire,' I answered, bowing, * I should 
obey your majesty before anything else ; 
19 



% 



290 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

thus, when the house is on fire, I will come 
and ask your permission to put out the 
flames/ 

*' The king was good enough not to be 
displeased by my answer," adds the Duke 
of Doudeauville. 

Before the fall of royalty, the minister 
had thought fit to resign. Though retired 
from public affairs, he w^as still the de- 
fender, the friend of the unfortunate ; and, 
whether at Paris or Montmirail, his little 
children and other works of benevolence 
divided his heart and time. 

In connection with the Ladies of Peace, 
we have spoken of the death of the Abbe 
Legris-Duval. This family friend had gone 
to sleep in the Lord in 18 19, deeply re- 
gretted, not only by the family of the cas- 
tle, but by the inhabitants of Montmirail, 
his piety and kindly charity making him 
beloved by all who knew him. 

On his death-bed, he had promised the 
holy duchess to plead the cause of her son 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 291 

and daughter-in-law with God, for that 
they were so saddened by having no child. 
Some months after his decease, she writes 
to Mademoiselle Rollat: — 

"The viscountess gives us for the first 
time in thirteen years very sweet hopes ; 
one scarcely dares to believe in them, but 
I am full of confidence. I pray you to 
thank Heaven, and to ask for this child a 
living and active faith. It is the prayer 
that I make before all others, and God is 
too good not to hear me favourably." 

The hopes were realized, and Heaven was 
generous, for the Viscountess of Roche- 
foucauld in a few years became the mother 
of six children, who formed a graceful 
crown about her. 

To the great satisfaction of their venera- 
ble grandmother, their education was in- 
trusted to Monsieur Bernier, a virtuous 
priest, capable of training the gentleman 
and the Christian. The two eldest, Messrs. 
Stanislas and Sosth^nes, stated in their 



292 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

earliest youth, that this was what they in- 
tended to be one day. 

Their best time, that of the fine season, 
was passed at Montmirail ; all was regu- 
lated to promote duty and pleasure, and the 
good grandmother looked forward to the 
moment which brought her little angels to 
her, as the sweetest in her day. Nothing 
could be more touching than to see them, 
on the signal for their recess, surround her 
arm-chair, and respectfully kiss her aged 
hand. The holy duchess would smile with 
that indescribable expression of maternal 
tenderness which she alwavs retained. 

" Well, my little children," she would 
say, "has Monsieur TAbbe told you very 
pretty stories to-day ? " 

" Oh yes, grandmother, very pretty and 
very old too ; but they are perfectly true 
stories ; perhaps you don't know them, or 
maybe you learned them when you were 
Uttle ? " 

" Perhaps I did ; tell them to me.'* 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 293 

And then would come the always new 
story of Adam and Eve, and of Abraham, 
to which the grandmother would listen at- 
tentively, the more that the little narrator 
would put a great deal of warmth into his 
action and omit no detail. 

Madame de Doudeauville took a partic- 
ular interest in the education of the eldest 
little girl, whose vigorous and ardent nature 
gave no presage of her premature death. 
There was such an exuberance of life in 
her, that the governess, while recognizing 
her rich qualities, was often puzzled to pro- 
vide for this activity, and this imperious 
demand for motion and novelty. The good 
duchess would then interfere, and it was 
curious to see her sweet, calm face close 
to the bubbling ardour which she tried to 
quiet, while giving it at the same time the 
necessary food. The convent games served 
as encouragements and rewards. 

Next to Mademoiselle Elizabeth came lit- 
tle Marie, whom a sad event placed wholly 



2 94 Madame de la Rochefoticauld. 

under her grandmother's control. The 
mother of this dehghtful family died holily 
in 1834. At the news of danger, the good 
duchess hastened to Paris. When they an- 
nounced to the sick woman that her mother 
was coming to see her, — 

" What mother ? '' she asked. 

" Madame de Doudeauville." 

'' Oh, that one : that is the mother of my 
heart," she answered, and a gleam of joy 
passed over her face. This sweet presence 
seemed a safeguard to her on the threshold 
of eternity. 

After receiving the last Sacraments, she 
wanted to bless all her children, and 
counted them. Noticing that one was 
missing, she asked for it ; the good grand- 
mother then had the presence of mind to 
cross the hands of the dying woman on 
the head of one of the children already 
blessed, and thus spared her the grief of 
knowing that her little angel w^as no more. 
At the moment when she was asking for 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 295 

him on earth, he was preceding her and 
calHng her to heaven, having yielded up his 
last breath a few hours before his mother, 
in his httle bed, which she wished to keep 
next to her s. 

Griefs were now multiplying for the holy 
duchess. In 1833, she lost her son-in- 
law, Monsieur de Rastignac, who had not 
married again ; in 1834, her daughter-in- 
law, and a grandson ; in 1835, her sister, 
the Countess of Montesquiou ; and a few 
days after, while still bathed in tears, she 
was called to shed more over Mademoi- 
selle Elizabeth, who, in full health, was car- 
ried off by typhoid fever at the age of 
fifteen. 

Each of these losses made a fresh wound 
in a heart which, wholly God's, was still the 
heart of the family. When a twig is broken 
from the branch, it leaves a sad incision 
there. Father Roger understands this, and 
the faithful friend sends words of true com- 
fort to the afflicted saint. 

t 



296 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

"Madame la Duchesse, — I unite my- 
self to you, before the Lord, with all the 
affection of my heart, and share deeply 
the sorrows which yours is feeling. But 
your faith tells you that every cross is a gift 
from God, and that, in a submissive and 
resigned soul, it will necessarily produce 
an abundance of ineffable graces, and of 
blessings for this life and for eternity. 
You know better than any one, madam, 
what the Christian would become if he had 
not this support, which St. John of the 
Cross calls the ' strong staff,' that sustains 
us. It is the Cross that has saved the world, 
— it is that which preserves it in shap- 
ing the elect souls. It is the daily bread 
of the just, the most solid food of the real 
disciple of Jesus Christ. The more bitter 
and sensible it is, the more it is like that 
which our Divine Master and Saviour bore 
for love of us. The very sign of the cross 
is a blessing, and by the strongest reason- 
ing, the reality of the cross must be very 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 297 

blessing. The more one is bound to it, 
the more should he deem himself happy. 
I pause, madam, for it does not belong to 
the words of man to heal the heart; it is 
the work of the Comforting Spirit which 
is in you." 

The infirmities of age are now added to 
the suffering of the heart, and augment the 
merit of patience. Father Roger under- 
stands and admirably touches upon the 
privileges of this precious condition. 

"I easily conceive, madam, that though 
in very good company, your soul should feel 
almost in a desert, without the power of 
opening or communicating itself. It has an 
inner language which is not that of the day, 
and which can only be exercised in perfect 
silence. Oh ! how eloquent is this solitude, 
this forsaking of the creature, this language 
of the heart ! What inexpressible things 
does it not say to the heart of Jesus ! 

" Do not let us complain of being weak 



298 Madame de la Roche/otuauld, 

and of seeing our strength and activity 
fail ; our body must decay, to tend towards 
the dust from whence it came, and whither 
it will return, whilst the spirit should la- 
bour diligently to raise itself more and 
more towards heaven, which is its true 
dwelling-place. 

" Do not then think, madam, that you 
are growing old. Do as I do, who seem 
to be growing young : the more we ap- 
proach the end, the more joy and vigour 
we should show. Our great distresses 
should not disturb us, for that is what be- 
longs to us, — our real attribute ; they are 
absorbed in the Di\4ne Mercy, by the mer- 
its of Jesus Christ, oui only resource and 
our only hope. 

''' We will say no more about our being 
joined together in prayer, for this has been 
a settled thing for a long time past. 

" Do you know the other day I did not 
like to leave Paris without embracing the 
two dear children, Stanislas and Sosthenes. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 299 

I wish to add here a word for Mademoiselle 
Marie, whose little letter I received with 
much pleasure. Providence, who has given 
into your hands the education of this dear 
little girl, will also give you everything 
which is necessary to develop her happy 
disposition, and to confirm her in the love 
of true virtue. May she always be very 
merry." 

This little girl, of whom the holy re- 
ligious speaks here, and to whom he 
addresses a word or two in nearly all 
his letters, had been, since her mother's 
death, entirely under the care of the good 
duchess, who was engrossed in preserving 
her innocence and developing her inclina- 
tion to piety. Father Roger heard her 
first confession, and whenever he could, he 
did himself the pleasure of explaining her 
catechism to her. The good results which 
she got from this had such an influence 
upon her whole conduct, that the kind 
grandmother abridged her conversations 



300 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

with the reverend Father, that he might 
give a bit more of his time to his Httle girl. 
In the chapel and among the poor the dear 
child found her chiefest pleasures ; and her 
greatest recreation was to do a charity. 
When she was entering her tenth year, her 
Grandmother de Montmorency, thinking 
to give pleasure, sent her as a birthday gift 
a magnificent cloak lined with ermine ; but 
when they opened the box at Montmirail, 
the child burst into tears. They were all 
astonished, and called her attention to the 
beauty of the garment ; but she said, still 
crying : " What good will it do me ? I 
have a plenty of cloaks for myself already, 
but I have nothing to cover the poor who 
are cold. Ah, if my grandmother had 
only sent me the money that this fur cost, 
I should have been able to do a great 
many charities," 

Monsieur Georges de la Rochefoucauld, 
her great grandson, was growing up by the 
side of the venerable grandmother together 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 301 

with Mademoiselle Marie. The two chil- 
dren were nearly of the same age, and had 
the same pious and charitable tastes. They 
were very fond of each other, understood 
one another remarkably well, and in their 
recess the question was, who could dress 
the little chapels best. To please them, all 
the inhabitants of the castle would go and 
sing Christmas carols before the manger in 
the parlour. They made pleasant company 
for the good grandmother, who went over 
her reminiscences to instruct without tir- 
ing them. She had many stories to tell, 
histories of the Revolution of thrilling in- 
terest, but in which she always put herself 
in the background, in order to bring out 
her relatives, friends, and servants, and 
above all, the action of Providence. She re- 
called her fears, dangers, and privations : 
as how one evening in the time of the 
famine, being sad at having only one egg 
to divide between her two children, she 
had prayed, and had felt much comforted, 



302 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

when, on breaking the egg to have it 
cooked, she had found in it two yolks, 
which, under the circumstances, made a 
real meal. They hung upon her words ; 
she mingled with her narrative short but 
telling reflections, adapted to the capacity 
of her little audience, making them appre- 
ciate the usefulness of being able to wait 
upon one's self, of learning to be content 
with little, and the importance of being 
ready for every event. 

The children would interrupt her by a 
hundred exclamations : '* You saw all those 
dreadful things ! . . . . You had no maid ! 
.... You suffered all that ?".... 

Who does not know the power of con- 
trast over the young imagination ; the pri- 
vations of which their aged grandmother 
spoke seemed the more palpable, because, 
very naturally, the children compared them 
with the well-being that surrounded them. 
Then came their indignation against the 
authors of such great evils, those who had 



I 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 303 

killed such good relations, — for in the 
Rochefoucauld family were counted thir- 
teen victims of the Revolution. To this ve- 
hemence the charitable grandmother would 
answer in the words of our Lord on the 
cross : "They know not what they do ;'' and 
she would add, humbly : " My children, if 
the good God had not helped me, I should 
have done even as they." Whilst Made- 
moiselle Marie, grave and sweet, struggled 
to understand how she who was goodness 
personified could ever have been so wicked, 
Monsieur Georges, less serious than his 
cousin, would laugh roguishly, and taking 
advantage of his grandmother's blindness, 
would make signs to the others that he did 
n't believe a word of it ; but from time to 
time, to cheer the conversation, when some 
new crime was spoken of, he would say: 
** You would have been capable of doing the 
same thing, would n't you, grandmother } " 
Delighted to hear her repeat her act of 
humility, he would multiply his incredulous 



304 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

protestations, and his gestures of reverent 
devotion. 

The old manor-house, which had been 
honoured by the long sojourn of Saint Vin- 
cent de Paul, had now the privilege of shel- 
tering a future apostle and martyr to the 
faith. Monsieur Olivaint, tutor to Mon- 
sieur Georges, was now beginning with 
modest gravity and intelUgent devotion, his 
mission to youth. 

That power of fascination which made 
the ministry of the fervent Jesuit so fruit- 
ful, was very happily felt during his stay in 
Montmirail : the soul of all good works, he 
organized there the Society of Saint Vin- 
cent de Paul. Such a character soon won 
the esteem and admiration of the pious 
duchess, while he experienced in her pres- 
ence the respect that holiness induces. 
This holiness was to go on growing to the 
end, and to nourish itself at the fountain 
of sacriiice ; the death of Father Roger, 
which happened in 1839, while depriving 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 305 

Madame de Doudeauville of an excellent 
friend and experienced guide, also took from 
her her powerful auxiliary in the foundation 
at Nazareth. 

She had to make a great act of faith, 
that she might not tremble for the future 
of a little society hardly formed. The holy 
religious, a fortnight before his death, had 
written to her the following letter : — 

^'Madame la Duchesse, — I must in- 
demnify myself for having been so long 
without writing to you, but it would be dif- 
ficult for me to tell you all I should like 
at this moment. So many things come 
into the mind at the end of one year, and 
the beginning of another ! As there is 
nothing stable in this lower world, and as 
the greater part of mankind, even Chris- 
tians, find only those things fortunate that 
affect their temporal affairs favourably, I 
see very few who flatter themselves that 
the year has been in accordance with their 



3o6 Madame de la Rochrffmcavld. 

_:.-.^. TT-- ^-^ ^.-*;e ?rT-_ . nd for 

: ^ r e hope 

/ :r :^ ::. y good year, and I wish 
yc'-i tre 5ir.:e. Your soul, madam, is too 
firmly s :: shed in the way of faith, and 
in the love :' e divine will, for you not to 
find all th: s er- rood. What new hap- 
piness dee 5 : e H ' y Family prqiare for 
us this ye.^ I: i i, s ::e: :::: whatever 
it be, it wi.' ': e rreit. for it will be in the 
ordaing c : 7 iQ turn to 

the good :: re. 



Icr- 



The good duch^ 
to judge quite cieiT e: :' : 

in order to bear : 7 e i :eeded; 

the chaiming chi' : 5 e :t : es hcdi- 

ness was her coir: :: e :e\ee :y a linger- 
ing but incim'e'e :' .ee e after having 
given edificat:::. :: eer : end all the 

servants, passe i ^-rjt day (rf 

the feast of the '::e;e: e :e J: :::r^:::rL 

A 'e::er from Mother Rollat gives us 
some e:: :e5 : - :e s of this death. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 307 

"Poor little Marie yielded to her long 
sickness on the 8th of December. She 
died as she had lived, with the piety and 
sweetness of an angel. Her happiness is 
not doubtful ; even her present happiness 
is hardly so ; but nevertheless pray and ask 
prayers for her, for we do not know the 
judgments of God. She received the Holy 
Viaticum twice, and Extreme Unction on 
the evening before her death, and all with 
perfect consciousness up to the last mo- 
ment. She kissed with touching tenderness 
the true cross and the medal of the Blessed 
Virgin. A little before her death, they had 
placed near her bed a statue of that dear 
mother ; she gazed at it with an ineffable 
smile ; all at once, as if ravished in ecstasy 
she cried, holding out her arms to the holy 
image, ' Ah, how beautiful she is ! How 
beautiful she is ! * Then, moving her lips to 
pronounce the name of Mary, she breathed 
her last. They kept her for twenty-four 
hours, the face uncovered, and she remained 



3o8 Ma da vie de la Rochefmccaiild. 

as beautiful as an angel After taking her 
to the parish church, they brought her to 
our own to be deposited in the family tomb. 
In spite of the weight of the leaden coffin, 
the congregation of religious would not 
give to others the consolation of carrying 
it All the town followed ; there had to be 
guards at the door of our chapel, the court 
and even the main road being crowded. The 
family wished no ceremony ; the pubhc grief 
and lament of the poor were more touch- 
ing and beautiful than you can imagine. 

" Madame la Duchesse is to be admired 
for the courage with which she bears a, to 
her, irreparable loss. This child was the 
delight of her life, and the object of her 
constant occupation. She stayed by her 
bed until the last breath, without shedding 
a tear, without the least sign of weakness ; 
then, ha\dng prayed, she went peacefully to 
mass and made her communion. It was 
only when her two little grandsons, Mon- 
sieur Stanislas and Monsieur Sosthenes 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 309 

threw themselves into her arms as she 
came back from service, that she could 
weep." 

To crown all these trials, the Lord called 
to Himself, on the 2d of June, 1841, the 
honourable and virtuous Duke de Dou- 
deauville. For two years he had suffered 
with heroic patience acute and almost con- 
stant pain, using the small intervals which 
his disease allowed him, to interest himself 
for the poor, and all that concerned the 
good of the country. 

His uprightness, devotion, and pious res- 
ignation had impressed upon his face, worn 
with illness, a truly patriarchal stamp ; one 
felt himself before a man of virtue. 

As, during the last months of his illness, 
he could not go to church, Monseigneur, 
the Bishop of Chalons had authorized the 
ordinary at Nazareth to celebrate the Holy 
Sacrifice every Sunday in the chamber of 
the noble old man. It was a favour which 
he appreciated, who in the midst of the 



3 1 o Madame de la Rochefotuatild. 

greatest occupation, had made out a list 
of the benedictions given in the churches of 
Paris, in order to be able to receive every 
day in the week a benediction of the Holy 
Sacrament. He whom he had loved to 
visit came now to \'isit him, and entirely 
given up to the happiness of this Presence, 
he took no more interest in the affairs of 
this world. Thus, when the good duchess, 
to whom he had often expressed the desire 
of seeing his son marrv for second wife 
Mademoiselle Vertillac, came to tell him 
the happy conclusion of this marriage plan, 
he stopped her by a sign, and said to her 
distinctly, " I wish to know nothing more 
of the things of earth/' 

It was with this sentiment of lively faith 
that he received the last sacraments. The 
entire population crowded to honour his 
funeral service, and do homage to a gen- 
erous benefactor. 



CHAPTER X. 

REST IN GOD. 

We approach the end of this long ex- 
istence, where fidelity grew with trial, and 
love with fidelity. Before seeing it close, 
calm and serene, according to the promise 
of Holy Scripture, like the evening of a 
beautiful day, we wish to reproduce a por- 
trait sketched by friendship, and preserved 
among the family relics. 

" In the old Castle of Montmirail lives 
the octogenarian whom all approach with 
veneration. Age has not changed her reg- 
ular, noble, imposing features ; it has but 
added to the majesty of this fine face ; it 
has only replaced the charms of youth by 
those of grace and virtue. 

" Strangers admitted to the antique 
manor ; all you who approach with emotion 



312 Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 

the lady of the mansion ; you who know the 
purity, the uprightness of this long life, so 
well filled by the accomplishment of every 
duty and the exercise of all the virtues, — 
you are ambitious of the honour of pressing 
your lips to that venerable hand which has 
only opened to give or bless ; this hand, on 
which children and grandchildren come to 
put their kisses, .... but your emotion 
is doubled when you see that this expres- 
sion of respect and tenderness is the only 
sign now by which the old lady can rec- 
ognize her son and grandsons. Sight is 
lacking to this lovely soul, for the expres- 
sion of benevolence and kindness. 

" If the fine eyes of the Duchess of Dou- 
deauville have ceased to see the light, her 
mind is clear-sighted, and her intellectual 
faculties have kept their youth. Born with 
a very lively imagination, and a very ardent 
soul, her reason has always been so power- 
ful, that she early learned to modify and 
restrain her flights of impulse. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 313 

*' If her severity was ever great towards 
all that was not perfectly pure, elevated, 
worthy, and Christian, she had for the sin- 
ner whom she was trying to bring home, 
extreme indulgence, one might almost say, 
a particular charm. 

" Her exterior is calm ; but her words 
are full of warmth and enthusiasm when 
she addresses those she loves, or indeed 
the unhappy whom she would comfort. 

" She had successes without having 
sought them ; admirers without deigning to 
receive their homage ; she has sometimes 
excited envy, but neither calumny nor slan- 
der has ever dared to attack her ; for the 
excessive severity that she practised to- 
wards herself did not hinder her from 
judging others with charity. Who could 
have wished then to look for the weak side 
of so fine a character .?.... 

"It was in religion that all the force of 
her soul took refuge ; it is to religion that 
she owed the lessons which enabled her to 



314 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

walk with a firm step to the end of her 
honourable life 

" The rudest trials, during the horrors of 
the Revolution, put to the test her heroic 
courage, whilst neither threat nor danger 
could make her yield or draw back one 
step. She compelled those who were about 
to send her to the scaffold, to admire her. 
The most cruel sufferings impaired her 
health, without being capable of shaking 
her resignation. 

"The Duchess of Doudeauville has even 
more loving kindness than sweetness, and 
her heart is very tender, though her sen- 
sitiveness has nothing feminine. If she 
has never sought to shine in the world, 
to make up for it, she is the charm of her 
intimate circle. 

" Her mind is universally just, and her 
judgments are always based on considera- 
tions of a superior order. 

" She is fond of serious reading ; an ele- 
vated mind attracts her, a generous senti- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 315 

ment touches her, and misfortune elicits all 
her sympathy. 

"That is the Duchess of Doudeauville, 
with certain contrasts of character, of mind 
and heart, in addition, which give the more 
piquancy to her personality. 

" May this model woman, so worthy of 
admiration, be long spared to those who 
love and venerate her, for the edification 
and example of the world ! " 

Between these grand lines, so admirably 
drawn, let us read above everything else, 
the saint ; let us not forget that faith and 
love of God have put into exercise all the 
faculties of a superior nature, which, with- 
out the compass of religion, might have 
wandered into vain theories, like so many 
others, and whose life might have run out 
in unfruitfulness, whilst dreaming of the 
most generous devotion. How many good 
works ; how many souls saved through her 
medium ! What constant edification there 
has been for all who came near her ! One 



3 1 6 Madame de la RochefoucatUd. 

might say that every step has been marked 
by a good deed. Do not let us deceive 
ourselves ; grace alone can effect such mir- 
acles, and to be such as she to the very 
end, without ever contradicting one's self, a 
pattern of duty and apostle of love, one 
must know well how to draw strength from 
the source of holiness and infinite goodness. 
It was by prayer, by habitual prayer, that 
this woman filled her soul with the treas- 
ures which she poured out about her ; this 
was the secret of her power. Prayer, union 
with God, the understanding of sacrifice, 
this is what made her invincible. Thanks 
be to God, the spiritual life knows no pause ; 
the soul goes on always mounting, — de- 
taching itself more and more from earthly 
ties ; all conspires towards the great work, 
whose merit grows in proportion as the 
will has greater efforts to make, and finds 
itself less seconded by nature. 

Now that the duchess can do no more, 
actively, her heart makes up for the lack of 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 3 1 7 

everything. Condemned to physical pow- 
erlessness, she likes to keep herself in con- 
tinual dependence, not only upon the di- 
vine will, but also upon the creature. 

How many times, when eager to hear 
letters read which bring her very dear 
news, has she repressed this natural im- 
pulse and waited patiently until her secre- 
tary came to offer her services. 

She gets up very early, and, not to dis- 
turb the household, she walks, leaning on 
the arm of an old servant, to hear mass 
at Montlean, nearly every day. In spite of 
the injunctions of her children and the 
example they have set of most respectful 
deference towards the holy old lady, the 
persons attached to her particular service 
have adopted towards her an exacting man- 
ner, which she apparently does not notice, 
and even encourages by her promptness in 
submitting to all their arrangements. It is 
not through weakness that she does this ; 
she has never been familiar with them, and 



3 1 8 Madame de la Rochefotccauld. 

has always preserved the most perfect dig- 
nity, but she makes herself subject, through 
a spirit of humility and mortification. 

This virtuous characteristic is especially 
remarkable, when, at nine o'clock regularly, 
old Marie comes to the drawing-room 
to lead her to her bed-room. One of the 
habitual visitors at the chateau, seeing the 
promptness wdth w^hich she always rose, 
after this summons, took it into his head, 
for several days, to turn the conversation 
upon a particularly interesting subject, and 
to make it very animated at the moment 
when this good but brusque woman came 
to call her mistress. He did not succeed 
in detaining her : one only time, however, 
he accomplished making her hesitate for a 
moment or two. ^larie had time to repeat, 
" Madame la Duchesse, it is nine o'clock." 
In getting up to follow her, the holy woman 
addressed a word of excuse to her. 

When she goes to the convent, as she 
does not wish to trouble the regular silence 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 3 1 9 

of the corridors, she has asked to be noti- 
fied when she enters them, and this Marie 
does rather roughly, hitting her on the 
shoulder several times, without drawing 
any sign of displeasure from the venerable 
duchess. Far from complaining, she ex- 
cuses all this bluntness, and speaks of the 
people of the castle only to praise their 
devotion and good qualities. 

Her toilet, while always very simple, is 
for all that worthy of her ; she would not 
wish to sadden those about her by the 
smallest omission of the conventionalities. 
She has, however, a great desire to be eco- 
nomical, so that she may be able to give 
more to the needy. In one of her visits to 
the convent, happening not to have with 
her her ordinary adviser, she begs the su- 
perior to tell her plainly whether the gar- 
ment she wears may be mended again. 

A poor woman seriously ill, having died 
one day from the consequences of a long 
walk which she took in order to catch the 



320 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

duchess' carriage, that she might bring her 
suffering to her notice, the respected old 
lady not only has the three orphans whom 
she leaves brought up, but, touched by the 
frightful accident, and not being able to see 
for herself, takes care to be informed every 
time she drives out, whether there are any 
poor persons in the neighborhood. 

Towards the end of 1841 this worthy 
mother of Nazareth and of the poor had a 
keen sorrow to bear, which again threw into 
relief her burning charity. For many years, 
having given over to her husband all her 
income, she had reserved to herself only 
an allowance for her dress and her maid. 
It was from this sum that she stole her 
charity money, wishing to leave no mark 
of it. Monsieur de Doudeauville attached 
his name to all the well known schemes 
of benevolence. " One must give an ex- 
ample," he would say, " when one has a title 
and a fortune." 

The pious duchess saw him pursue this 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 321 

course with pleasure, in accordance with 
the advice of the Apostle : " Let your light 
shine before men ; " but so far as she her- 
self was concerned, she clung to practising 
the words of the Divine Master : " Let not 
thy left hand know what thy right hand do- 
eth." She liked particularly to help those 
poor people who are ashamed to beg. When 
her husband rallied her upon the subject, 
she contented herself with smiling, and 
casting a look at the Holy Family. 

As she had seen, during the years which 
followed the Revolution of 1830, the tem- 
poral embarrassment of the house of Naz- 
areth (which would not have been able to 
support itself, but that Monsieur de Dou- 
deauville came several times to its aid), 
like a provident and wise woman, she 
wished to secure the means of existence to 
this community, without encroaching in 
any way upon the family property ; for this 
end she economized privately, and put into 
the hands of her agent what she called her 



32 2 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

reserve fund, which would end by being 
quite an important sum. The good found- 
er had full confidence in this arrange- 
ment, when one day her confidential ad- 
viser arrives at Montmirail, asking for a 
private interview. She begs Mademoiselle 
Therese to go for a walk in the park ; then 

Monsieur L , finding himself alone with 

her, throws himself at her feet, and says, 
sobbing : — 

'* Madame la Duchesse, before going to 
La Trappe, where my confessor has ordered 
me to end my days, I come to beg you to 
free me from the obligation of restitution, 
on account of the impossibihty of my re- 
pairing the wrong I have done." " What ? " 
asks the holy duchess, *' you have done me 
a wrong .?.... Is it only towards me ? '' 
" Yes, madam, and since that time I am 
deprived of the Sacraments, and shall be 
so unless your generosity forgive me all 
my debt/' '' Rise, sir, rise quickly," she 
answers, with emotion, '' I give you what 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 323 

you have taken from me." " But, Madame 
la Duchesse, a considerable sum is in ques- 
tion ; it is that which you ordered me to 
hold in reserve. I have played at the 
Bourse, and have lost all ! " 

The unhappy man had just gone out, 
and his words were still sounding in the 
troubled mind of the venerable dowager, 
when Mademoiselle Therese returned. The 
face of the holy woman was disturbed, — 
the redness of her face, the altered sound 
of her voice, all revealed an internal agita- 
tion which she in vain sought to conceal. 
To the reiterated questions of her confi- 
dante, she at last answers by communicat- 
ing to her the scene which had just taken 
place. Then, stopping suddenly, '* The- 
rese," she said, " I have been wanting in 

delicacy : I assured Monsieur L that 

I would remit his debt, that I pardoned 
him, and I ought not to have made his 
fault known. Promise me never to speak 
of it to anyone whatever." She had to 



324 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

agree to this to calm the alarmed conscience 
of the pious duchess, who, in spite of her 
assurances, repeated several times : " My 
God, I have not been able to imitate Thee ; 
to reveal the fault which one pardons is 
not to pardon graciously." 

This opening of her heart to her com- 
panion comforted her for all that, and 
as soon as she was convinced that the 
secret would be kept inviolate, she took 
measures to protect the honour of her 
agent. Having summoned him again, she 
had him tear up everything in his accounts 
which had any bearing upon the lost sum. 
She confided to him the design she had of 
endowing Nazareth, the great distress she 
felt at its being impossible for her to do 
it after this, and for all reparation she re- 
quested him to tell Mademoiselle Rollat 
himself all that had taken place. " It is 
Nazareth you have wronged, sir ; it is to 
Nazareth that in the future you should 
give whatever you and your mother can 
dispense with.'* 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 325 

And, regarding this error as a momen- 
tary surprise, a passing temptation, she 
left to him the care of her moneys, and 
even doubled his salary, on the plea of his 
having a greater responsibility since the 
death of Monsieur de Doudeauville. 

The stipulated confession was certainly 
made to Mademoiselle Rollat, who was se- 
riously ill at the time, for Monsieur L 

having asked, in the name of the founder, 
to see her privately, she sent away her hos- 
pital nurse, in order to talk freely with him. 
But after the visit nothing betrayed the 
trouble which the first superior of Nazareth 
must have felt ; nobody in the house heard 
from her mouth a word which related to 
this grave confidence ; and the secret, faith- 
fully kept by the three confidants, would 
have been buried with them in the tomb, if 
the unhappy agent, again being guilty, had 
not himself made confession of his fault, 
and of the generous pardon he had ob- 
tained. 



326 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

In seeing the resignation of Mademoi- 
selle Rollat and her unshaken trust, the 
holy founder must have comforted herself 
more easily, and been wilhng, with her, to 
commit entirely to the care of Providence 
the temporal future of Nazareth, which she 
had so greatly desired to secure. 

The Lord soon asked a new sacrifice of 
her ; she learned that the illness of Made- 
moiselle Rollat was incurable, and in the 
middle of April, 1842, she made haste to 
return to ]\Iontmirail, to hold yet a little 
communion with her. This holy friend- 
ship, begun under pious relations, had 
grown with the fellowship of labour and 
sufferings ; trials, sacrifices, and contem- 
plations of the supernatural linked these 
two souls closely ; thus the venerable duch- 
ess was sadly afflicted by the great sepa- 
ration ; but, attached to the work of Naz- 
areth for itself, she continued to give it 
tokens of her maternal care as touching as 
they had ever been, and one can say that 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 327 

until her last moment she had a tender 
solicitude for the little society. 

But now her strength failed rapidly. 
Her hearing became less keen ; she walked 
with difficulty ; exterior life receded from 
her little by little, but her soul's life grew 
apace. 

She had a presentiment that the activity 
of her intelligence was about to desert her ; 
she prepared herself for this new suffering, 
and said one day : " I have made my sacri- 
fice ; all that the good God shall will." 

A little after, she fell ill ; an attack some- 
what like apoplexy reduced her to a sort of 
physical prostration. Seated in her easy 
chair, almost motionless, one would have 
supposed she had no thought for anything, 
if she had not fully revived to answer when 
they spoke to her of God, of her children, 
or of Nazareth ; then she would smile, or 
make an exclamation which disclosed the 
vitality of her intelligence and her heart. 

Father Varin came frequently to confess 



328 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

her, and give her the Holy Communion. 
One day, as he was about to go, having dis- 
charged his office, the Duchess of Roche- 
foucauld, stopping him, gave him a book on 
those of the Tyrol who had received the 
Stigmata : " My father," said she, " what do 
you think of these stories ; are they not 
very miraculous ? " For an answer the holy 
rehgious, raising his eyes to heaven, cried, 
" Ah ! madam, for me the marvel of mar- 
vels is to see this woman of eighty years, 
whose career has been crossed by every 
trial, ready to appear before God, and to 
present to Him her baptismal innocence." 
There came a time when the two holy old 
people had not the strength to raise their 
voices and make each other understand ; 
then Father Lefebvre had to take the place 
of Father Varin. As the holy duchess ex- 
pressed no regret at this change, those 
about her thought that she had hardly per- 
ceived it, and had not remarked the greater 
interval which they had seen fit to observe 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 329 

between her Communions, now reduced to 
one a week. But when, on a journey, the 
superior of Nazareth, stopping at Paris, 
told her that she had met Father Varin, 
and that he would soon come to visit her, 
they were astonished to see the pious in- 
valid join her hands, and with tears in her 
eyes, answer, with great emotion : " Oh, 
perhaps he will give me back the frequency 
of my Communions ! " Full of regret at 
not having surmised the suffering of such 
a privation, they begged Father Lefebvre 
to give oftener to the saintly dowager the 
God of her heart, her Hfe, and her conso- 
lation. 

A few days before her death she seemed 
to rally, her strength revived ; they hoped 
to keep her among them for a little longer ; 
but she, feeling her end approach, asked for 
the last sacraments herself, and as a prep- 
aration, desired that they should repeat 
aloud the evening prayers ; noticing that 
they omitted the one she daily said for the 



330 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

holy father, she asked for it. Father Pon- 
levoy, who was present at the ceremony of 
Extreme Unction, himself said the prayer 
for the dying. The expiring woman gave, 
to the last, sensible signs of fervour. 

Her children surrounded her. They 
hoped to get a word from her, an ex- 
pression of tenderness. The Duchess of 
Rochefoucauld, leaning towards her, said 
affectionately : " Mother, do you still love 
Zenaide very much 1 " No answer ; the 
dying woman seemed no longer to hear. 
Having several times repeated the same 
question, and always without success, she 
had the inspiration to ask : " Do you love 
the good God t " A " Yes ! " spoken with 
strength, made it understood by all that 
from henceforward she wished to be occu- 
pied only by thoughts of heaven. 

On the 24th of January, 1849, she died 
quietly at Paris, at eleven o'clock at night, 
in her eighty-fifth year. Her soul, detach- 
ing itself without effort from its earthly 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 331 

prison, to fly to the bosom of the God 
whom it had so much loved, left to the 
material shell its majestic impress. One 
felt a religious respect in the presence of 
the temple where the Spirit of the Lord 
had so long rested. Children and grand- 
children, friends and servants, wept at the 
departure of the saint, the treasure of all ; 
but each, amid his tears, said those words 
of the church : " Blessed are they who die 
in the Lord!" 

The venerated remains, being immedi- 
ately transported to Montmirail, were de- 
posited in the vault at Montlean, near those 
whose guardian she had been here below 
At the approach of the funeral procession, 
from all the environs the people poured 
spontaneously towards Montmirail, — or- 
phans, old men, entire families, who had 
felt the succour of the holy duchess, swelled 
a glorious cortege. Monseigneur de Prilly, 
Bishop of Chalons, associated his personal 
sorrow with the public mourning. The 



^1,2 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

letter which he addresses on the occasion 
to the chaplain of Nazareth is a short and 
beautiful funeral oration, which we wish to 
reproduce here to close this admirable life. 
" My dear friend, I come to you, for I 
feel that you have great need of consola- 
tion at Montlean, after having lost the ven- 
erable and generous founder who was the 
glory and the chief ornament of the place. 
If she did not pray for us in heaven, if 
she had not left us her revered memory, 
the treasure of her example, this loss 
would truly be irremediable and irrepara- 
ble. There would remain for us only bit- 
terness and profound desolation, and we 
should be excusable if we gave ourselves up 
to discouragement ; but let us take heart. 
Madame la Duchess de Doudeauville is 
still in our midst ; she lives here, she will 
live here always, her memory will be eter- 
nal. Ah, if we are not all saints, nothing 
will have been wanting on God's part, and 
we shall be without excuse, having had for 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 333 

so long such a beautiful example before our 
eyes. They say, and I easily believe it, 
that when Monseigneur d'Hermopolis would 
speak of Madame la Duchesse, it was only 
in exclamations of admiration and venera- 
tion ; he could not express the sentiments 
with which so excellent and holy a person 
inspired him, — a person superior to all 
those whose virtues we now esteem, and 
whom we see, notwithstanding, giving great 
examples to the world. This illustrious and 
admirable woman raised herself so much 
above them that she seemed, one can al- 
most say, of another nature than the chil- 
dren of men. As much by the power of 
grace as by her fidelity in corresponding to 
it, she was quite by herself in the fulness 
of all virtue ; in piety, gentleness, friend- 
liness ; in amiable and lovely humility ; in 
a word, in all the qualities which transform 
into angels the poor children of Adam, 
to make them in advance inhabitants of 
heaven. 



334 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

'* It is a great and inestimable favour 
when it pleases God to give such examples 
on the earth. We should profit by them 
as much as we can, and not stay behind 
when we see to what degree we can raise 
ourselves, and advance in the road of vir- 
tue by constant efforts and daily labour. 

" They will pray much at Nazareth and 
elsewhere for Madame la Duchesse, and 
they will do well, for it is a duty, but we 
must invoke her prayers. I should not be 
surprised if miracles were done at her 
tomb. As for me, I shall often think of 
her in my perplexities. She was a person 
of great judgment, and a lady of good 
counsel. Louis XVIII. set a high value 
upon her advice, and consulted her often. 
I shall do the same, and shall be the bet- 
ter for it ; she will always be living for me. 

" The details which have been given me 
of the funeral ceremony were very touch- 
ing ; the memory of them will be pre- 
served. We shall recall the affecting fare- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 335 

wells made to this admirable woman by 
the parish of Montmirail, as they wet with 
their tears the coffin v/hich is to encamp 
among you until the resurrection day. It 
is a real relic that you possess ; may she 
cover you with her protection ! I ask it 
of the holy duchess for you all. Let us 
make ourselves worthy of her kindness in 
taking her for our model. 

" May the Lord deign to bless Montlean, 
this house, the work of her hands, which 
was so dear to her. May this precious es- 
tablishment prosper, and be ever an asy- 
lum, a school of holiness and virtue ! . . . . 

" The heart of the daughters of Naza- 
reth has rest and joy in the remembrance 
of her whom Providence inspired to create 
their little society. 

" Happy in finding in her memory a 
model and encouragement, we make but 
one prayer over the tomb where admira- 
tion is mingled with gratitude : * That pur- 
suing from the heights of heaven her noble 



336 Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 

mission, she, whom zeal constrained here 
below, may now intercede to multiply the 
number of Christians who walk through 
life by means of the radiant beams of the 
faith, and that she may obtain the grace of 
fidelity for the humble religious family 
which she has so holily and generously 
loved!" .... 



THE END. 



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